


Tribes

by Kinggorilla



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Blood Feud, Gen, Lost Tribes, lots of fighting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 09:02:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 41,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19826875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kinggorilla/pseuds/Kinggorilla
Summary: A straightforward mission to retrieve a damaged MALP spirals into madness, forcing each member of SG-1 to reevaluate what it is they truly believe in.





	1. A Toothsome Welcome

**Author's Note:**

> Intermittent violence, occasionally salty language, possibly uncomfortable themes.
> 
> This would take place early in season 7.

Samantha Carter didn’t know it, but she was having a nightmare.

The cold stone hall she stood in was cavernous, a hundred yards in each direction, at least. The ceiling, if there was one, stretched far away into the yawning blackness. Set into the nearest wall of the room was an enormous mirror, cased in an elaborately carved frame of dull yellow metal. Its unblemished surface reflected a crystal clear reversed image of the gloom-shrouded room. Carter couldn’t begin to guess how such an immense sheet of glass could have been manufactured; its unfathomable size should have caused it to collapse under its own weight. It was flanked on either side by two stupendous staircases whose far ends were lost in the darkness, and whose near ends met in a shallow platform high over her head.

The scene was lit by a watery grey light that provided illumination without any semblance of warmth. Its effect was to cover everything with a sickly, deformed cast, as though her eyes weren’t focusing quite right. She felt the beginnings of a headache start throbbing through her brain.

The walls were lined by titanic pillars reaching up into the darkness; pillars so tall that their middles stretched far out of sight. In fact, all she could clearly see was the base of the nearest, resting on a plinth larger than a house, and covered with writhing rows of hieroglyphics. Everything here was built on a scale that would have dwarfed the Titans. 

_Heiroglyphics?_ , she thought. _Must be Egyptian_. _Never heard about anything like this, though._

She sucked in an involuntary breath. The air was cool and damp, thick with the scents of exotic spices and the aroma of natron. A musty, charnel smell; the smell of death, hung heavy in the icy air. The odors filled her with an inexplicable sense of dread, causing her stomach to knot in anticipation of… what?

Her mind was screaming at her body to run, but in true nightmare fashion, her feet remained firmly rooted in place. Dust from long ages covered the floor in a thick, gritty carpet that scraped underfoot. The dread grew, threatening to consume her in an inescapable tide.

She was in full SG gear, and took comfort in the reassuring heft of the P90 strapped to her harness. Checking the clear magazine, she cycled the weapon’s action and clicked the safety on.

“Carter,” a familiar voice behind her said. “They’re coming. Fall back.”

Sparing a glance behind her, she saw the familiar lean form of O’Neill, also cradling a P90. Looming indistinctly behind him was the bulky form of Teal’c, carrying his staff blaster and what looked like a silver-tipped spear. Daniel Jackson was also present, supporting a fourth man whom she didn’t know.

The stranger had a delicate olive-toned, almost Mediterranean, complexion. He appeared to be in his late twenties, clad only in a white linen kilt belted with gold. The ghostly gray light gleamed off his clean-shaven head. Jackson’s support of him was apparently due to an injury of some kind; with his free hand, the man was holding a bloody wad of white gauze to his side. Crimson drops fell to the stone floor in an irregular rain that also stained the spotless white of his kilt.

From the darkness to their front came the slow, measured tramp of thousands of feet. It sounded like an army on the move, but there were no lights, no voices, no other sounds aside from the crisp slap of feet on stone. It was unnerving to say the least.

The stranger, already pale from blood loss, turned paler still.

“Look!,” he shouted, pointing to the mirror.

For a moment, Carter studied her reflection in the glass surface. She might have been a little bit older. Her short blond hair was cut in a slightly different style than it currently was. She smirked, thinking how many times _that_ had changed in a few short years. Then her eyes slid past her reflection, and she looked deep into the mirror.

Something was moving.

Not behind them, something was moving _inside the mirror_.

“He’s here!,” the stranger hissed in a panic stricken voice. He turned a fear-whitened face to Carter as he spoke again. 

“Quickly! Before it’s too late!,” he said in a strident tone, speaking louder to be heard over the thudding tramp of approaching feet. Teal’c tossed her the silver-tipped spear, which she caught one-handed, never losing her grip on the P90.

A dim, shadowy figure in the mirror was moving toward them. It was enormous, at least as large as the mirror itself, and it was all the more terrifying because she _couldn't_ tell what it was. It was vaguely man-shaped, albeit dozens of times larger than the largest man. Where its head should have been was only the most hazy suggestion of a horned monstrosity. Despite her inability to see anything clearly, the overall effect was more than enough to fill her with panic and revulsion. She didn’t need to be told that whatever it was didn’t belong _here_ , and if it somehow wound up _here_ , that would be very bad indeed.

Refocusing her gaze on the mirror, she could see the indistinct reflection of the thousands of subterranean marchers, approaching from their rear. The deafening tramp of feet grew louder, echoing from the walls in an ear-splitting cacophony that threatened to drive her insane. At any moment, the mysterious regiment would be upon them.

“Break it! Break it, _**now**_!,” O’Neill shouted, slipping the safety off his P90 and moving the weapon into firing position.

“But if I do-,” she heard herself begin to object.

“ _ **NOW!**_ ,” he roared, nearly beside himself as he cut her off mid-sentence with a blast of gunfire. Teal’c energized his staff weapon and opened fire as well.

She cocked her arm for the spear cast, wondering what could have frightened a tough veteran like O’Neill so badly. A second fleeting thought chased the first: ‘ _Why am I the one throwing the spear? I know nothing about spears._ ’

She tried to remember anything she had ever read about spears and their usage and came up empty.

_Doesn’t matter_ , she thought viciously. _At this range I could throw a damn rock and it would get the job done. No need for technique here._

She let the shaft fly without a conscious thought, just pure instinct as it screamed across the intervening distance, following the arc she’d imagined in her mind’s eye.

The shadowy form had reached the other side of the mirror at the same moment she threw. For just an instant it hesitated, and then the surface _bent_ , stretching outwards as the dim abominable shape took a tentative step forward, trying to break the barrier.

Time froze.

Carter could clearly see dust motes sparkling in the still air; the spear shaft flexing in mid-flight; strobe-like flashes of muzzle blast from the P90. Her open, empty hand was still, held motionless out in front of her body, caught in the all-important act of follow-through. The entire tableau was stuck in place, caught between heartbeats.

All of Creation held its breath as the fate of the galaxy hung in the balance.

The horrid monstrosity pushed through _from the other side._

The spear struck and the mirror shattered, an instant too late.

“ _ **Nooooo**_!,” Carter screamed, knowing they were all doomed as she snapped wide awake, gasping for breath. Eyes wide, heart hammering, she blindly scrambled to her feet, snatching at her sidearm, unsure of her target, only knowing that something very _very_ bad had just happened.

Panting heavily, the light of insane fear slowly faded from her eyes as she spun in place, covering the room, checking all sides for any sign of the dark monstrosity.

Nothing.

Her bedroom was clear.

Shame-faced, she safed the pistol and put it back on the nightstand, next to the dog-eared copy of Lovecraft’s _Imprisoned With the Pharaohs and Other Short Stories._

“Bastard,” she muttered at the book under her breath and looked at the clock.

4:51.

She would have been getting up in ten minutes anyway, but it was still a brutal way to be awakened.

“Carter?”, O’Neill asked, holding out a cup of coffee.

She didn’t answer, only sat staring at the conference room table’s top, mesmerized by the black geometric inlay.

“ _Carter_?,” he repeated, a little more forcefully.

She blinked heavily as though waking from a nap, then noticed the proffered styrofoam cup.

“Sorry, sir,” she offered limply, taking the coffee with a smile of thanks.

“You’re a little out of it today,” he observed, sliding into his seat. “What’s up?”

The wall clock displayed a lurid red “7:03”, making General Hammond uncharacteristically late for the 07:00 briefing. SG-1 was seated around the conference room table, patiently awaiting his arrival. Truthfully, Teal’c was patiently awaiting his arrival. Dr. Daniel Jackson was immersed in a yellow legal pad of voluminous notes and was oblivious to all else occurring around him. Carter had been staring off into space, and O’Neill was being a Nosey Nellie.

Carter chewed her lip indecisively, unsure of how much she felt like sharing. The same dream had recurred three nights in a row, and she wasn’t going to chalk it all up to reading scary books before bed. While there were definite similarities, some of the images in her dream were unique enough to not have sprung from the pages of Lovecraft or Machen. She needed some expert advice on the subject but wasn’t sure how to broach the topic to Jackson. ‘Help me figure out this crazy Egyptian stuff I’ve been dreaming about,’ just wouldn’t do.

“Haven’t been sleeping too well,” she finally said lamely, hoping O’Neill would be satisfied and let the matter drop. She should have known better.

“Insomnia?,” he prompted, not really trying to pry, but concerned nonetheless. The not-really-relationship they may or may not have had sometimes made even simple questions a potential minefield, but this was nothing more than honest concern on his part. A good CO was supposed to stay on top of issues team members might be having, so this was well within his prerogative to ask.

She shook her head, not trusting herself to reply. She didn’t have to. He was old enough and had been around long enough to make a good guess what was up.

“You know, Carter,” he said in a gentle, easy tone, “in the time we’ve been doing this, we’ve been through stuff no one expected us to survive, even us. We’ve seen things no one should ever have to see. We’ve both done things that we really wish we didn’t have to.”

She glanced nervously around the room, then stopped herself, wondering why she should be nervous. All the things he was talking about they had experienced as a team. There was no reason to assume anyone else would be less affected than she was. This was family, and if there was anyone on Earth who could understand and be supportive, it would be this group right here.

Besides, Daniel was still buried in his notes, and Teal’c was imitating a brick wall, so they were effectively alone, anyway.

“Face it: between the four of us, we should have more PTSD than a battalion of Marines.” 

That got a snort out of her.

“If you take stuff and pack it in,” he went on in the same breezy tone, as though they were talking about the weather, “and keep putting more stuff on top of _that_ stuff, sooner or later something’s going to get squeezed out somewhere. Your worry tank can only get so full before it overflows.”

“Is that what you think is happening?” she asked softly.

It was his turn to chew his lip as he thought.

“You’re like a Cub Scout den mother to this group,” he finally replied, patting her softly on the shoulder. “You’re really good at supporting and uplifting people, but you forget _we’re_ really good at that, too. It’s not a crime for you to unload on us from time to time. We’re all here for each other, Carter, not just you for us. One man can carry an eighty pound weight, but if three others are helping, then all you’re packin’ is twenty pounds each. That’s a lot easier. That way, nothing unpleasant gets squeezed out and wakes you up at 3 in the morning.”

“Thanks, sir,” she grinned, and took a sip of the coffee. It tasted a lot better than she thought it would. As usual, she had been over-thinking the matter; she would bring it up to Daniel first chance she got.

“As you were, people,” Hammond growled, bustling into the room. It wasn’t an angry growl; like a bear, that was how he communicated. Also, the man could bustle like nobody’s business. For someone who was pushing up hard against retirement age, he routinely ran rings around fresh-faced Academy graduates.

Teal’c’s eyes snapped open, and Jackson reluctantly flipped his legal pad shut and slid it to one side.

“General,” O’Neill said with the air of a waiter bringing up an unpaid bar tab, “You’re _late_.” 

Hammond spared a disgusted glance at the clock.

"Hmph," he grumbled, then as an afterthought checked his watch. 

"I've got 07:00 on the nose, Colonel. I'll have to get Walter in here to change the time; can't have you people gallivanting around the galaxy on an incorrect timetable."

"D'oh!," O'Neill deflated, crestfallen. 

"Now," Hammond went on without missing a beat, "if you're done trying to catch a General doing something wrong, let's get started."

He took his seat, calling the briefing to order

"Yesterday at 14:30 hours a MALP was sent to a planet designated P3X-880, a small world well outside Goa’uld controlled territory. According to astrocartography, it's in the same belt of space where naturally occurring naqua'dah should exist. This was to be a preliminary geological survey. Three minutes into the probe's pre-programmed exploratory routine this happened."

He clicked on the overhead projector and the lights automatically dimmed. As the viewer came to life, SG-1 found themselves watching camera footage of an earth - like scene. The camera panned, showing a stargate ringed by heavy forest, before settling into a nominally 'forward' view of an open, grassy meadow. 

The MALP began trundling forward, and O'Neill found himself wondering why they were watching MALP home movies, when without warning, the probe tipped over on its side and shook violently for several seconds.

"That's something different, " he commented, sitting up in his seat with renewed interest.

A brown blur flashed in front of the camera for a split second before disappearing. Moments later, the camera went black.

"According to the sensor log, there was no sign of seismic activity," Hammond said. “No sign of inclement weather, either.”

"Just flipped over all on its own?," O'Neill asked innocently. 

Hammond didn’t bother to reply, just looked disgruntled instead. O'Neill was his best field commander, but dealing with him could occasionally be like dealing with an unruly third grader.

"What was that brown flash?," Carter asked. 

"We weren't able to isolate anything in the imagery beyond a blur," Hammond replied, glad _someone_ was taking things seriously. "I want you to go investigate, and if possible, send the MALP back."

"Tree fell on it, MALP tipped over, mystery solved," O'Neill said, lacing his fingers behind his head, proud of himself for solving the problem without leaving the briefing room. Carter silently kicked him under the table.

"With all respect, General," he continued, "MALP recovery isn't exactly our ball of wax, nor is geology. There are tech teams for just such occurrences."

"That's very true, " Hammond answered patiently, switching the projector into slide mode. "This, however, _is_ your ball of wax."

He clicked a button, and a still image popped up on the display showing a monolithic building constructed of black stone. Despite being some distance away, it was obviously enormous. 

"This is a still shot from the camera as the MALP was tipping over. This building was evidently obscured by the tall grass while the probe was level, and only came into frame as it fell. You'll recall the cameras are mounted on the side of the MALP body, so the added height was just enough for it to be visible."

Jackson, interest piqued for the first time, had risen from his seat and approached the screen, studying the image intently.

"This isn't Goa’uld or Ancient architecture," he muttered absentmindedly. "Looks vaguely Sumerian or maybe Mayan, could even be Toltec."

"Interested, Dr. Jackson?," Hammond asked with a wry grin.

"Very much so," the young man replied, removing his glasses and wiping dust from the lenses. It was a delaying tactic while he tried to sort out what he'd just witnessed. His brain told him this wasn’t possible, while his eyes insisted they had seen what they had seen.

“Danny Boy’s hooked,” O’Neill muttered _sotto voce_ to Carter.

“If there are no further objections...?,” Hammond trailed off.

“None at all, General. The master angler knows how to bait his hook.”

Hammond grinned at O’Neill’s ill-concealed attempt at a graceful capitulation.

“SG-1, your departure time is set for 0900. Sergeant Siler will meet you in the gate room with some extra equipment you’ll need. Dismissed.”

As the General headed to his office next door, Carter sidled up next to O’Neill.

“As God is my witness,” she muttered softly so only he could hear, “I thought you were going for the ‘Master Baiter’ angle.”

“The thought _did_ cross my mind,” he confessed.

“Sir, I’m afraid one of these days you’re going to cross a line that even General Hammond won’t be able to ignore.”

“Perish the thought, Major,” he replied in mock horror. “Hammond’s able to ignore more than you might think.”

“Still, Colonel…,” she began to object.

“Relax, Carter,” he cut her off. “One can’t be uptight all the time, can one?”

His eyes had a wicked twinkle that made her want to either bash him over the head with the coffee carafe or shove him up against the wall and start ripping his clothes off. She was saved from having to decide one way or the other by General Hammond.

“0900, Jack. I mean it,” his disembodied voice came drifting in from his office.

“OK, gang, let’s go get our toys rounded up,” O’Neill ordered.

Teal’c’s chair groaned in protest as he rose to follow them. Jackson was still rooted in place, forehead creased in furious concentration. O’Neill tilted his head at Jackson and Carter got the hint, going to collect the distracted archaeologist.

“Been kinda quiet this morning, big guy,” O’Neill remarked casually to Teal’c, hooking his thumbs into his pants pockets.

“There seemed little reason for comment,” the hulking Jaffa replied with a sidelong glance.

O’Neill shrugged, making a face.

“The coffee, however,” Teal’c added unexpectedly, “is most excellent this morning.”

“I didn’t think you hardly ever drank coffee,” O’Neill responded with some surprise.

“I do not, but the scent is different this morning, much more aromatic.”

Carter gently grasped Jackson’s elbow.

“Daniel? Time to go. We’ve got to start packing,” she prompted.

He blinked and looked at her in confusion for a moment as his brain returned to the twentieth century. The chaotic architecture he had just seen had sent his mind scrambling back into the far past searching for similarities to anything he knew, and he had come up empty. No matter how new or how different the phenomena they encountered, there was invariably some frame of reference he could latch onto to begin to interpret things. This time, he didn’t have enough information to begin doing that, and it threw him off quite a bit.

“Right behind you,” he grunted. 

He felt a strong temptation to be irritated with the Air Force for insisting that things run on their timetable, instead of giving him time to think a problem through, but on reflection, it _was_ their stargate and they _did_ make the rules.

Jackson had considered trying to manipulate events so that he would wind up with his own private stargate, but he was honest enough to admit he didn’t have the logistical capacity to run his own private exploratory program. As unsatisfying as things were, it was a decent compromise, wherein nobody got everything they wanted, but most everybody _something_ they wanted.

He followed his teammates, making a mental list of the reference works he would need to bring.

P3X-880, at first blush, looked like a delightful world. It hit that sweet spot where temperature, gravity, and sunlight type were comfortably agreeable to humans. O’Neill had remarked in the past about such occurrences, which usually triggered a rebuttal by Carter about the gate builders obviously having a set of similar criteria regarding planets where they chose to erect stargates. 

The grassy meadow they had seen on-camera was ringed by a substantial forest. The ground sloped gently away from the stargate at a very easy angle. For once, there was the sound of insects chirping and buzzing in the grass, an often overlooked commonplace on Earth, but rarely encountered off-world. A smattering of fleecy clouds floated in a painfully blue sky that was somehow reminiscent of old watercolor paintings.

SG-1 moved off the stone gate platform, adjusting their gear. While being accustomed to packing unusual items in their inventory, this load was setting some new boundaries, even for them.

Chief among these was a six-foot metal rod, about as big around as a man’s thumb. This was being carried by Teal’c, on the theory that it very artistically balanced the staff blaster in his other hand; in addition, he was the only one who was experienced carrying long freight, and the others were worried they would be constantly banging into or accidentally poking things.

The next item was a nondescript field ruck, crammed to the top with nylon webbing and straps, being worn by Carter in place of her standard ruck. Jackson came after, lugging a 16 lb sledge hammer, followed by O’Neill, who was weighed down by a ratcheting come-along winch. 

This assortment of dirty-hands gear had been waiting for them in the gate room courtesy of Sergeant Siler, who proceeded to give them a short demonstration on how to use these items to get the MALP back upright. O’Neill looked a bit grumpy throughout the presentation. He was used to working with his hands, so all this was old hat for him. 

Surprisingly, Jackson was as well. Field work out in the middle of nowhere prepared junior archaeologists for all kinds of non-disciplinary experiences, including how to jerry-rig almost anything.

The plan, as outlined by Siler, was to hammer the rod deep into the ground, and use that as an anchor point for the winch and strapping to pull the MALP upright. Assuming the damage wasn’t too severe, they could use the on-board controls to drive the probe back to the gate. At least, that was the plan at the SGC.

But now they were on an alien planet, smelling the scent of alien plants being wafted through alien air. Far off in the distance to their left, the wind lightly swished through the trees, creating a soothing susurration of leaves.

“Anybody see our wayward space probe?,” O’Neill huffed, starting to sweat. Machismo had prompted him to grab the heaviest piece of equipment first, a decision he was starting to regret. It was, he decided, time to look into the possibility of getting some younger people on SG-1, if for no other reason than having someone else to lug the baggage around. His nearly fifty-year-old body wasn’t too happy with his machismo at the moment.

“Over on that side,” Carter answered, waving to the right. 

Some of the grass was pushed down, and they could see the faint trace of where the MALP’s tracks had crushed a path, which had partially sprung back up. They followed the indistinct trail, incongruous olive-green shapes in a palette of yellows and light greens, looking uncomfortably like bacteria invading a cell.

“No trees nearby, Colonel,” Carter pointed out with an evil grin.

“So much for that theory,” he agreed, trying his debonaire best to not gasp for air in front of Carter. It would be so undignified. “Always the chance it fell in a hole, too,” he added.

“I hope you don’t mind my saying so, sir, but you seem to be treating this mission pretty… well, cavalierly,” she observed.

“Of all times, _now_ is when you want to talk?,” he wheezed, then set down the winch. “As a scientist,” he panted, “you know how adaptable people are. They get used to all kinds of things that seem weird at first glance. I guess I’ve just hit my saturation point. We’re doing MALP repair, followed by a little snooping. Worst-case scenario, maybe a standard meet-and-greet if there are any natives, which, judging by the look of things around here, I’d say is unlikely.”

“Oh,” she was a little taken aback at the thought. Carter fervently hoped she’d never lose the tingle of excitement at traveling to alien worlds and exploring.

“There’s always the building,” she pointed out.

“Which is of interest to Daniel,” O’Neill conceded. “But how many times have we come across ruins that only hold sociological interest?”

She wasn’t sure he was using the right term there, but she got the gist.

“As far as the exploratory stuff goes, we don’t have a great track record at finding the kind of tech that fulfills our mandate,” he pointed out.

“There’s always a first time,” she rebutted, a little more sharply than she intended.

“That’s very true, and I’d never argue otherwise. Face it, Major,” O’Neill concluded, “I’ve become… _jaded_.”

“Give you a hand with that?,” she waved at the winch.

“No,” he rebuffed her softly, adopting a defeated air. With a grimace, he re-shouldered the tool and started stagger-walking toward the MALP.

“Your _macho_ is showing, Colonel,'' she teased. She liked to tease him when no one else could hear.

“Nonsense, woman, I’m wearing boxers,” he panted red-faced. He liked it when she teased, he just wished he was better at teasing back.

Teal’c led the way, using the rod to part the waist-high grass along the MALP’s track. In between gasped imprecations, O’Neill decided this would be a great spot to go camping, if only there was a body of water nearby. Camping, in his estimation, just wasn’t camping without the opportunity to drown a worm or two. The wind swished a little more insistently through the trees, as if it was irritated at being ignored. 

The probe was only about thirty yards from the gate, but was almost totally hidden by the grass. The outside edge of one rubber caterpillar tread poked above the wavy stalks, a lone sentinel of manmade things in a sea of nature. Their single file line quickly approached, but even from a distance, it was clear something was much more amiss than a simple tipsy robot.

Carter summed up their feelings with a subdued, “wow.”

Shedding their extra gear one by one, SG-1 circled the MALP surveying the damage. The entire frame of the probe was twisted, manipulator arm bent, and the camera dangled by a cable, swinging gently back and forth. The left track and left-rear corner of the chassis were crushed, as if some immense weight had fallen on it.

“I’m missing something, clearly,” O’Neill remarked. “I see no Acme safe here, yet it’s plain to see Wile E. Coyote has dropped one on our robotic friend.” 

Jackson stumbled over a slight depression in the ground, masked by the ubiquitous grass. He caught himself from falling by grasping the edge of the MALP’s tread. With an agonized _griiinch_! of metal, the whole track assembly tore loose and thudded to the ground.

“Sorry,” he apologized with an embarrassed flush. “Guess I don’t know my own strength.”

The wind kicked up another notch, rattling the leaves in an insistent whisper that was getting a little annoying.

Carter and Teal’c crowded closer, examining the damage closely as O’Neill sidled up to Jackson.

“You doing the Charles Atlas bit these days?,” he asked innocently. “I’ve noticed you’re putting in a lot more time in the gym between missions.”

“They got a BowFlex,” Jackson deadpanned. “I just had to commit.”

“Sir?,” Carter interrupted, “you should look at this.”

Teal’c departed the wreckage before he came over, and he distractedly noticed the big Jaffa studying the ground intently as he stalked away.

“Whatcha got, Major?,” he asked as he casually sauntered over. “What sank our battleship?”

“This isn’t an impact, sir. This is a _bite_.” 

His eyes widened.

“Could you repeat that, Carter? It sure sounded like you said our MALP got bit.”

“That’s exactly what I said, sir. This is a bite, a big one. Look at the damage radius.” 

She pointed at the outline, a semicircle almost a meter across, dented into the metal with the force of a hydraulic press, dotted with widely-spaced punctures.

“Then, that would make these holes… teethprints?,” he asked, casually running his hand over the creased metal. He could easily fit all four fingers of one hand into one of the holes.

“Yes, sir,” she affirmed, looking almost as unhappy about it as he did.

“That’s big,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” she agreed.

“That’s _really_ big. Big enough I don’t want to meet whatever made it.”

“Teal’c had the same thought. He’s checking for tracks,” she explained.

“Good initiative,” he said softly, looking around for the Jaffa.

Teal’c was halfway between the MALP and the stargate, walking a perpendicular line in the direction of the forest. His eyes were still glued to the ground as he tracked.

The wind increased yet again, almost to the point of shaking the trees. Something had been bugging O’Neill since their arrival, and it suddenly clicked into place.

“Carter?,” he mused aloud, “we’ve heard that sound since we got here, right?” He pointed in the general direction of the forest for emphasis.

“Yes, sir.”

“Hasn’t let up, only gets louder, right?”

“No, sir,” she answered, wondering if this was going somewhere, or if these were supposed to be rhetorical questions.

“Wind blowing through the trees, right?”

“Yes, sir,” she affirmed.

“How much actual wind have we felt?,” he quizzed, affecting nonchalance.

“Well… none, actually. Why?”

“I was really hoping you were gonna say something different,” he replied, then toggled his radio. “Teal’c, fall back to our position on the double.”

He untabbed his P90 and cycled the action, clicking off the safety. Carter gave him a questioning look.

“That’s not the wind,” he said simply. “Something’s coming.”

Jackson had caught the sense of urgency, but had no idea what to do with it. As Teal’c loped up, O’Neill pulled the archaeologist to the far side of the wrecked probe. 

“Something very large approaches,” Teal’c puffed, pointing with his staff in the direction of the stargate.

“Any guesses who?,” O’Neill asked necessarily. “Hopefully something with a taste for MALP that thinks eating squishy humans would be uncivilized?”

“I can only say that it has enormous feet,” Teal’c replied.

“Big hands, big feet, you do the math,” Jackson quipped. Carter blushed as she recalled the rest of that particular equation.

“Let’s hope it’s got a big heart to go along with the rest,” O’Neill offered.

The sound of rushing leaves resolved itself into the sounds of branches rasping along the side of the whatever it was.

“Idiotic suggestion,” Jackson offered. “How about we leave before it gets here?”

“No idea how far away it is. MALP’s pretty bad cover, but still beats being caught in the open,” O’Neill explained. “I’m not possibly gambling our lives on being able to get to the gate and dial out in a hurry.” 

“At its current speed, we would not be able to outdistance it for long,” Teal’c added.

They could see the progress of whatever it was by watching the trees shake. The crack and splinter of tortured wood rang out as some of the smaller growth was uprooted by brute force.

“Stay behind the MALP and stay small,” O’Neill instructed. “We got no idea if whatever that is is interested in us, so no shooting until I say so. Maybe we get lucky and it blows right on by.”

All four hugged the defunct probe as closely as possible. Jackson and Carter readied their weapons, while Teal’c energized his staff and pointed it in the general direction of the racket.

Which unexpectedly stopped.

The sudden silence was, if possible, even more unnerving than the noise had been.

“Awww, dammit, I’ve seen this movie before,” O’Neill muttered sharply. “I really, _really_ don’t like this.”

“It is studying the clearing, O’Neill,” Teal’c explained. “I see a vague shape, directly ahead and just to the left, immediately inside the treeline.”

His three companions scanned the named area, desperately trying to catch a glimpse.

“Not seeing anything, buddy,” O’Neill pointed out.

“You observe the tallest tree with the broken branch halfway up?,” Teal’c asked.

O’Neill allowed that he did.

“It is behind and to the immediate left of that tree,” Teal’c clarified.

“Still not…,” he trailed off as an indistinct movement was visible behind the screening foliage. They heard the dull thud of elephantine tread and saw a nebulous form stirring.

“Holy cow,” O’Neill whispered. “It’s as big as a house.”

A head thrust out of the heavy overgrowth, a head that rightfully belonged in the fevered dreams of a lunatic. It was two meters long if it was an inch. Grinning jaws displayed teeth like rows of yellow tent pegs; above the gaping maw was a blunt snout set in a massive triangular head. A thatch of coarse, wiry hair followed the line of the nasal cavity, up the forehead, and formed a tuft on the lacrymal crest. The whole nightmarish assembly was supported by a thick muscular neck.

All four team members could see the oversized nostrils flare and hear the muted _whuff whuff_ as it tested the air. Apparently, the creature was satisfied with the results, for it stepped clear of the forest and into the meadow. The rest of its body was built on the same scale as the head: an enormous barrel-like torso, and a massive tail, thick at the root tapering to a whiplike tip. 

The temptation was strong to think of it as a dinosaur, but while it was definitely reptilian, there was also the abhorrent suggestion of the simian in its appearance, especially in its method of locomotion. The fore and hind legs were almost equal in length. Though the rear set was much more massive in structure and bore most of the weight, the forelimbs were also capable of being used for walking, so that the beast went sometimes on two and sometimes on four legs. The whole of the body was covered with thick, hide-bound bony plates reminiscent of a stegosaurus' dorsal spines. The creature's form was a mass of contradictions, as though someone had attempted to put a dinosaur together, but hadn't really been sure how to go about it. 

“What are we supposed to do?,” Jackson asked nervously, creeping lower behind the MALP, wishing he could slide under it. Like O’Neill, he had seen this movie too many times to be comfortable with it.

“Don’t piss it off,” Carter hissed.

“Eyes are attracted to motion,” O’Neill said. “Be small and still.”

“Perhaps it was attracted by the sound of the stargate,” Teal’c suggested. 

“Don’t really care what it’s attracted to, as long as it goes away,” Jackson countered. “Jack, I don’t think these popguns are going to make a dent in that.”

O’Neill _harrumphed_ silently. He had just been thinking along the same lines.

“Sit tight, folks,” he ordered. “Don’t go gettin’ all wiggy on me until we know there’s a reason to.”

“At least there is no wind to carry our scent to the animal,” Teal’c said.

As if on cue, a light breeze sprang up, the first genuine wind they had encountered thus far. It curled around past their backs and blew directly into the forest.

“Whatever happens, don’t shoot until I do,” O’Neill commanded tersely.

Estimating the wind speed at five or six knots and the distance to the creature as about a hundred yards, he did some quick mental math, and then slowly started counting off the seconds. 

Sure enough, right at the forty second mark, the animal became agitated. Its head swung from side to side before looking in their direction. It went to all fours and started slowly plodding toward the defunct MALP. O’Neill came to a decision, possibly a bad one, but there didn’t seem to be any good options at the moment.

“All right, troop, we’re falling back. I want us to stay in a nice, loose group. Maybe Godzilla over there has bad eyesight and will think we’re another good-sized animal and leave us be. Hopefully he just wants another lick at our MALP-sicle.”

They clustered together in a loose scrum and started slowly walking away from the wrecked probe and giant lizard. At the first hint of motion, the creature froze. It raised up on its hind legs and its head swung from side to side, as its nostrils flared, again testing the wind for their scent. It remained motionless as they backed away, five yards, then ten. 

“It’s working,” Carter breathed, not daring to speak with full voice.

They continued moving slowly away. 

Fifteen yards.

Twenty.

There was almost a full hundred yards of separation between them when the creature finally made up its mind what to do. With a _hisssss_ as loud as a steam engine, it charged.

Jackson had been dreading this outcome from the moment he had laid eyes on the animal. He was vaguely disappointed there was no ear-splitting roar, or ground-shaking footfalls. On the contrary, after its first vocal display, it was silent and made no more noise running through the meadow than they would have.

“Spread out and prepare to repel boarders,” O’Neill ordered. 

He slipped the safety off his P90 and sighted carefully. The lizard was closing the gap with appalling alacrity. He picked out a largish clump of grass about forty yards out, and kept an eye on it, hoping against hope this might be some kind of a bluff or threat display. Such things were not unheard-of among the animal kingdoms of Earth, but this was a different world with different rules.

As the creature passed the tuft of grass he was eyeballing, he opened fire. Carter and Jackson followed suit an instant later.

The P90s could spew lead at an alarming rate; 900 rounds per minute, in fact, more or less limited only by having 50 rounds to a magazine. O’Neill, Carter and Jackson had 150 rounds at their fingertips, ready for use.

It was a good thing they had so many, because they were accomplishing exactly nothing. The 5.7mm ammunition was designed to be armor piercing against kevlar and similar personal armor systems. It stood no chance at all of penetrating the thick, bony plates covering the creature’s skin. The lightweight, fast-moving bullets either flattened into lead mushrooms, or caromed off into space, gouging shallow bloody grooves in the thin skin covering the plates. The pain this caused spurred the animal to greater speed. O’Neill decided to switch gears.

“Aim for the joints!,” he yelled. “They aren’t armored.”

He picked out a knee joint and poured fire into it as well as he could. It was no easy feat to hit a moving target that was going in a straight line; hitting something unruly like a knee that flexed and moved all over the place was orders of magnitude harder. His teammates followed suit, but they fared no better. The bone structure was simply too massively built for their light weapons to be effective.

It looked like their luck had finally run out, O’Neill thought furiously.

They were going to die on a crappy backwater no-name planet in the middle of nowhere, and if anybody ever figured out what had happened to them, then they would at least get the privilege of being buried as a five-gallon bucket of dinosaur shit in Arlington National Cemetery. Not the end he’d hoped for.

Teal’c had held his fire as his companions started shooting. His staff blaster, while immeasurably more powerful than their projectile weapons, was notoriously inaccurate at any distance past rock-throwing range. He bided his time, watching the enraged animal lope closer. Accuracy would be vital; no time to ‘spray and pray’ as he had heard it expressed.

Twenty yards separated the giant lizard from SG-1. Twenty yards as measured on a football field is a much greater distance than when an angry something with a mouth full of teeth is coming at you. Under those circumstances, twenty yards seems obscenely close.

He energized the staff, clicking the aperture open, knowing at this range he would only get one shot. This had to count. His companions began to scatter, still vainly shooting, hoping against hope that maybe a lucky shot would stop the rushing beast.

The creature, marking Teal’c for its target, darted its head forward, saber-like teeth gleaming in the sunshine of an otherwise beautiful day. 

He held his fire as long as he could, fighting down a hundred-odd years of instincts screaming at him to not wait, to shoot now. Then he waited a half-heartbeat longer before toggling the blaster.

The energy bolt hit the rear of the monster’s palate, blasting its adenoids to atoms and vaporizing seventy pounds of bone, brain, and sinus cavity. The animal was dead before it crashed to the ground, plowing up a huge patch of dirt. 

With his customary understated aplomb, Teal’c casually stepped to one side as the animal’s sizzling carcass slid over where he had just been standing. Without a word, he powered the staff down, and turned an inquiring look at his companions.

Jackson was speechless; O’Neill was clearly searching for something clever or snarky to say, but failing miserably. Carter finally broke the silence.

“Still feeling jaded, Colonel?,” she asked, needling O’Neill.

“No need to twist the knife, Major,” he replied, knowing she had out-snarked him, and blaming himself for giving her the ammunition to do it with.

“My friend,” Jackson said quietly, clapping Teal’c on the shoulder, “that may have been the single most awesome thing I’ve ever seen.”

The huge Jaffa made no reply, only gave a short, polite bow of acknowledgement.

On closer inspection, the giant beast was even more impressive than it had seemed to their earlier panicked gaze. It was every bit of forty feet long, though admittedly, almost half of that length was in the big, meaty tail. The head was as long as O’Neill was tall, and the teeth were as big and sharp as the MALP’s mangled chassis had led them to believe. All in all, they were mightily glad things turned out the way they did, and had just begun a second round of back-slapping and congratulating Teal’c on his marksmanship when a thought occurred to Carter.

“Any chance there’s more of these things around?,” she wondered aloud.

The congenial atmosphere evaporated abruptly.

“I don’t think so,” Jackson said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “Apex predators usually have a pretty low population density on their range, and I’d guess that, given this fella’s size, we’re talking about a sizable piece of territory involved.”

“Don’t look now,” O’Neill quipped, “but your ‘fella’ is actually a ‘gal’.”

Jackson looked a little flustered, then shrugged.

“The point stands, Jack, and no, I didn’t bother checking the plumbing.”

“All right,” O’Neill allowed. “but the question arises, what’s the chance we run into one if we decide to go exploring? That building we saw looked to be a fair hike away.”

“That’s impossible to say with any kind of certainty,” Jackson rebutted. “We’ve got no idea what kind of prey animals this thing subsisted on, or even if any Earth rules of thumb apply here. This _is_ a different world, after all. We have no right to start making assumptions about anything at this point.”

“So you’re saying we cut our losses and go home?,” O’Neill asked. He was intentionally baiting the younger man. “That’s the safe move, after all.”

Jackson vacillated. He didn’t have the least desire to discover whether his guess was correct or not, however, he had a burning urge to explore the mysterious black building, which he could kiss goodbye if they left now. Hammond was unlikely to authorize further exploration if personnel safety was an issue; he was that fanatic about his people.

“Our weapons didn’t make a dent in that thing,” Carter pointed out, trying to be helpful. “If Teal’c hadn’t been here, our goose would have been cooked.”

“And eaten,” O’Neill added. He knew what Jackson would say, he just wanted the archaeologist to squirm a little first. Despite his great affection for Jackson, O’Neill was unable to resist the compulsion to troll him mercilessly when the chance arose.

“But Teal’c _was_ here,” Jackson objected. “And our goose _wasn’t_ cooked. I say we go on. Sam?”

He looked to Carter for support.

Now it was her turn to be in the hot seat. This had been all fun and games a second ago, but now she had to vote. She turned her attention to the hulking Jaffa.

“Teal’c, do you think you could do that again, if necessary?”

He considered for a moment. It had been a close enough call to not make the decision lightly. Had his timing been off, or his estimation of where the creature's brain was, things could have turned out very badly indeed.

“I believe I can, Major Carter,” he replied at last.

“Then I say ‘go’,” she told O’Neill.

Two ‘yes’ votes, and Teal’c giving at least tacit approval made a pretty compelling argument, but it was still his call. He cleared his throat, and spit into the dirt.

This was a damn big dinosaur, he reflected, even though it wasn’t really a dinosaur. And Carter had been right: whatever jadedness he’d been afflicted with was far, far away now. Maybe their luck with other things was going to turn, too.

“All right. If Sir Teal’c is comfortable in his new role as Number One Dragonslayer, then we go on. How ‘bout it, big guy? You can do that trick again?”

“Indeed.”

“Ok, then. Let’s do it. Teal’c, take point. Everybody keep their eyes and ears open. If any more of Fred Flintstone’s pets are out there, I don’t want to find them by surprise.”

He had forgotten that when luck turned, it could turn not just for better but for worse as well.


	2. A Walk in the Park

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A frustrating, but necessary bridge chapter, wherein the main characters get some much-needed exercise.  
> Someone gets called a dick; in the interests of preserving a sense of mystery, I shan't tell you who.

From the brief camera glimpse they'd had of the black stone building, it had appeared to be directly in front of the MALP. Gauging a rough bearing from the probe's mangled corpse might have been risky, but there was no better option. O’Neill dug out his compass, noted the supposed direction this world's magnetic pole, and clicked the compass bezel around until the arrow pointed in the vector they were heading. 

Every world was different, but every planet they had been on apparently had the requisite nickel-iron core necessary for generating a magnetic field. So, while magnetic north may not really have been 'north', it was sufficient for navigating purposes. There had been one notable exception, a planet whose designation he couldn’t recall, that swapped magnetic poles every few hours. This oddity had led them on an unnecessarily long hike and several hours of near panic when he'd thought they had lost a stargate. He fervently hoped that wouldn't be the case here.

Teal'c led the way, parting the occasional tuft of taller grass with his staff, like a bucolic Moses leading them to the Promised Land. He seemed out of place here. The forest was where the big Jaffa was truly in his element, ghosting among the trees with a suppleness that was reminiscent of a hunting leopard. 

Jackson was hot on his heels, carrying his P90 at a nervous port arms, eyes constantly roving from side to side and front to back. The wildlife on this world had shaken him out of his singleminded focus on the mysterious black building. Almost being eaten had a way of doing that to you.

Not that he'd had anything to do with it, but O'Neill was proud of the younger man's personal growth during their time together. Admittedly, he got a little nostalgic from time to time when he thought about Jackson's youthful optimism in the past. He'd had an idealistic streak a mile wide that occasionally led them to butt heads, but overall it had been an endearing trait.

After his recent flirtation with being ascended, Jackson had definitely undergone a change in mindset. He wasn’t necessarily a harder man than he had been before, but he seemed more sure of himself, a little less hesitant. It was hard to pin down how much of that was a natural progression of aging and how much was due to having been dead. O’Neill knew for sure that his own personal near death experiences had certainly changed _him_.

Carter came next, swinging along with the easy gait of a natural athlete. She seemed to be enjoying herself, soaking up the surroundings, but he knew that was only a surface impression. The phrase ‘more than meets the eye’ might have been coined with her in mind. That woman could go from laid-back and relaxed to spitting leaden death in about three quarters of a second. Not for the first time, he thanked his lucky stars to have a second in command who was so blisteringly competent. 

O’Neill himself brought up the rear, spending about half his time walking backwards so he could keep an eye on the forest. Mama O’Neill hadn’t raised a fool: he had no intention of being an _hors d'oeuvre_ for anything sneakier than he was. Predators were almost invariably territorial, so there was a good chance the forest was the natural range of the giant lizard’s kind, but he wasn’t betting their necks on it.

As they moved further away from the treeline, the breeze freshened, balancing the sunshine and making this an incredibly pleasant walk. After the slight slope away from the gate, the ground had evened out into an endless sea of grass. Periodically they could catch brief glimpses of the distant building above the verdant greenery as the terrain dipped and rose. Despite the fact that they kept walking, the structure refused to come any closer, leading them to the double conclusion that _a.)_ it was further away than they thought, and _b.)_ it was much bigger than they thought.

The second inference, particularly, whetted Jackson’s appetite, easing his fear of encountering more megafauna. The larger an archaeological site was, the greater the likelihood of something significant being there. Where the stargate program had jaded O’Neill, it had fired Jackson to new life. After years of _believing_ something significant was out there, he now _knew_ something was out there, waiting for him to find it. Every trip through the gate was a further validation of his beliefs. He was eagerly following Teal’c’s lead with visions of Sir Flinders Petrie dancing in his head when Carter jogged up alongside.

“Got a minute?,” she asked.

He could have been irritated at the interruption, as he was knee-deep in renewed speculation about the mysterious building, but decided to be diplomatic and follow the Holmesian dictum about not theorizing too far in advance of facts.

“What’s up?,” he replied, rudely answering a question with a question as he noted the fact that she looked nervous. Sam Carter wasn’t a naturally nervous person, and when she was, it was generally a good rule of thumb to follow her lead. He glanced uneasily around, wondering if she had seen something the rest of them had missed.

“Something following us?,” he ventured.

“Wha-?,”she was taken aback, and then started looking around in confusion, quickly checking their six, which only revealed the dusty figure of O’Neill giving them a million-dollar smile and waving like the Queen of England.

“Sorry,” Jackson quickly apologized, waving away her questioning look.

Her confusion gave way to nervousness again, tinged with a bit of hesitation. 

Those two sentiments at a moment where no threat was impending led him to believe the cause of the disturbance might be more personal in substance than not. The exact nature of Carter and O’Neill’s relationship was something he’d held at arm’s length for the sake of, to borrow a military term, ‘plausible deniability’. He couldn’t talk about what he didn’t know, after all. There was obviously something beyond what the general public was led to believe, but he ferociously respected their privacy and studiously ignored it as much as possible.

Not being military, he didn’t have the instinctive horror of such things as everyone else at the SGC, and frankly didn’t give a damn. They were two of the best people he knew, and as far as he was concerned, they could do whatever consenting adults liked to do together. He had no idea how Teal’c felt, but figured their opinions were pretty similar. He braced himself, not knowing what to expect.

Carter gulped down a deep breath, and braced _herself_.

“I need your help figuring out a dream I’ve been having,” she said in a rush, as though divulging a terrible family secret.

Jackson blinked, taken fully aback. He hadn’t known what to expect, but whatever it was, it hadn’t been _this_. 

“Uuummm, Sam, I’m not that kind of doctor,” he stalled. “I’m an archaeologist; you know that.”

“Mmmhmm,” she agreed. “That’s why I’m asking _you_ , and not the base psychologist. Some of the things I've been dreaming about seem like they'd be in your wheelhouse."

"All right," he agreed, intrigued. "The doctor is 'in'. Have at it." He was in the stargate program because of his unique knowledge; if it worked to his friends' advantage, then it was just as well someone got to put it to good use.

Without further preamble, she launched into a narration of the recurring nightmare sequence. For the most part, Jackson listened in silence, forehead wrinkled in concentration as they trudged through the waving grass. He interrupted now and again asking questions which she did her best to answer. As far as distractions went, Carter had dropped a fairly intriguing one in his lap. When she had finished, he remained silent, still thinking furiously. 

"Pretty crazy, hunh?," she prompted, after what she felt was a couple of awkwardly quiet minutes. 

"No," he denied, then immediately started to backtrack. "Well, yes. I mean, if you had told me this ten years ago, I'd have said some quality time with a psychiatrist would be a good idea." He half smiled at the thought. "But after everything we've been through, I'm not going to dismiss anything out of hand.

"So… any ideas?"

He pursed his lips, still rummaging through the dim recesses of old memories. 

"No, but at the same time, there's something damnably familiar about it. Any chance these are repressed Tok’ra memories? "

She considered for a moment before shaking her head. 

"No," she answered brusquely. "Those always had a definite 'feel' to them. I _knew_ I was seeing something that had happened to someone else. This feels like I'm _there_. And we're all there together. That never happened in one of Jolinar's memories."

Jackson kept trying to get a grip on what was floating around in his head, but it remained more elusive than Elvis and Bigfoot going on a joyride with the Loch Ness monster. Finally, he gave up in despair. He broke off a stalk of grass and twisted it into a knot.

"Whatever it was escapes me at the moment," he confessed. "Remind me when we get home and I'll look it up."

"Sure," she agreed, a little crestfallen. 

"I'll tell you this much," he encouraged her. "You're right about the Egyptian connection. The stranger you're describing sounds like a priest or scribe, so don't start thinking you're nuts. I just can't remember more. I've got reference works that should give us more clues."

"Ok," Carter brightened noticeably. 

"You realize there's always the possibility, however far out it may seem, that these are precognitive, right?"

"God, I hope not," she blurted. In truth, it was one of the first things she had considered, but that thought wasn’t an especially pleasant one.

"Besides," she continued, "science says there's no such thing as true precognition, just a wild mess of psychological impulses."

"Sure," he agreed easily. A little _too_ easily. They both knew there were all kinds of things science was really hazy on, and this one could well prove to be one of them.

Bit by bit the building was inching closer, though not fast enough to suit anybody's taste.

"Oh, and Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for trusting me enough to bring this up."

She smiled, and it was like the sun breaking through the clouds on a gloomy day.

They had covered perhaps two miles when Teal’c stopped, crossing his arms and resting the staff blaster against one shoulder. O’Neill broke into a sharp trot, figuring that an astute point man like Teal’c wouldn’t stop for no reason.

He couldn’t help but notice Carter and Jackson’s little _tete a tete_ , and was beset by curiosity over what was up. Carter had done most of the talking and Jackson had done most of the listening, so hopefully she was heeding his advice about confiding in her teammates. He felt a slight twinge of jealousy, then admonished himself for being stupid. It was far more important that Carter feel comfortable enough to unload her problems than it was for him to have his ego stroked.

O’Neill had fallen farther behind the group than he’d realized. He quickened his pace and arrived at Teal’c’s side at the same time as Jackson and Carter. His instincts had proven correct. Teal’c had stopped for a very good reason. A very broad and deep reason, too.

Teal’c pushed aside a shock of grass, and they found themselves looking out over as picturesque a valley as any had ever seen. At the near end a small river tumbled several hundred feet to disappear into a cloud of misty spray at the valley floor. It emerged from the haze and meandered along, a silver snake twisting through heavy riverine growth.

"There's got to be trout down there," O'Neill commented apropos of nothing. "Don't try to tell me there aren't. "

"They are dangerous, these trout?," Teal’c inquired. 

"Pound for pound, they fight harder than anything you'll ever come across, " O'Neill replied solemnly. 

"You can think about fish at a time like this?," Jackson asked acidly. Carter quickly turned her head to cover a snort of laughter. 

"Yes, Daniel, I can," O'Neill answered with a lofty air. "Given our reception on this planet, I find it reassuring to think there may be something here that won't try to eat us."

"You don't know that thing was going to try to eat us," Jackson shot back. "It may have been protecting its territory. "

"I was too busy counting teeth to ask," O'Neill snarked.

"So do we go down or around?," Carter asked, playing peacemaker for the umpteenth time. _Someone_ had to adult when O'Neill and Jackson started going at each other. Teal’c wisely stayed mum, wondering if trout had large teeth, too.

"Terrain looks a little easier that way," O'Neill said, gesturing to the right. The slope was gentler a hundred yards over, and no one relished the notion of trying to negotiate a steep angle and tall grass at the same time.

"Remind me we all need to check for ticks when we get home," O'Neill grumbled to Carter as they gingerly worked their way downhill. 

Halfway down the grass thinned out and gave way to loose scree and gravel. Despite its slippery nature, paradoxically, it was easier to negotiate than the overgrown slope had been. Half climbing and half sliding, the descent was quickly made.

“Spread out a little bit,” O’Neill ordered as they moved toward the river. “Eyes open for animal tracks and anything else. For all we know, we just jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire… full of velociraptors… with ingrown toenails.”

Carter and Jackson looked at each other, then at O’Neill like he was insane. For his part, O’Neill simply shrugged under the weight of their twin stares. Teal’c made no pretense of understanding, just concentrated on the first part of the order.

“Move along,” O’Neill encouraged, impatiently gesturing at the river.

No one was willing to go to far afield on their own. Maintaining about a fifteen yard interval, they edged into the forest. 

Overhead, brightly colored birds flitted and sang through the trees. Insects buzzed and chirruped in the overgrowth. Three humans clomped through trying their best to be stealthy, while a mountainous Jaffa ghosted along as silently as a will o’ the wisp.

Unconsciously, tension began to mount the further they went under the leafy canopy. First Jackson, then Carter assumed ready stances, rifles to shoulder, while O’Neill and Teal’c stayed relaxed and loose, eyes constantly roving from side to side. They _should_ be ok, as long as the birds and bugs kept making their noises; they usually shut up when predatory animals came around. The worst predators of all, of course, were the kind that walked on two legs.

The brush in front of Jackson cracked sharply, and he almost jumped out of his skin. Two largish dun-colored shapes silently flitted further back into the forest, clearing some of the larger clumps of undergrowth with impressive leaps.

“What was that?,” O’Neill shouted.

“I just flushed a couple of deer,” Jackson yelled back. “Or whatever passes for deer here,” he added under his breath. Teal’c’s voice crackled over the radio.

“I have observed several sets of tracks which I believe come from similar creatures. They always appear in pairs.”

“Anything for us to worry about?,” O’Neill asked.

“I do not believe so. They appear to be harmless herbivores with cloven hooves.”

O’Neill smirked.

“Be careful with that, buddy: different world, different rules. Besides, the Devil has cloven hooves, and he sure ain’t harmless.”

“He is customarily represented as being red; these creatures were tan in color,” Teal’c rebutted.

“Sounds like Teal’c’s got your number, Colonel,” Carter needled.

O’Neill harrumphed in irritation and motioned them to continue toward the river. 

The undergrowth thinned somewhat and the trees shifted from primarily deciduous to a mix of deciduous and evergreen, with pine trees being predominant. The gentle sounds of flowing water trickled through the trees, a lulling susurration that made them uneasy because of its tendency to cover up other sounds. Every sense was screamingly alert as they broke out of the forest.

The river lay in front of them, thirty yards wide, looking for all the world like a picture postcard from Rocky Mountain National Park. For the most part it was calm, with little rills and eddies near the rocky banks. The shallows were crystal clear, while the middle faded into a gorgeous dark blue.

“Do we go for a swim?,” Carter asked, grinning evilly.

“I forgot my bathing suit and I don’t wanna get the guns wet, Major,” O’Neill answered. “Split up, two and two, and look for a good spot to ford. Carter and Teal’c go upstream; Daniel and I will go downstream for a bit. Maintain radio contact and keep your eyes peeled. Knowing our luck, there’ll be alligators the size of buses in there so be careful.”

“So, what does one look for in a good ford?,” Jackson asked, scrabbling over a pile of loose rocks the size of bowling balls.

“Most people say engine,” O’Neill replied, warming to the subject as he watched Teal’c and Carter head upstream. “I disagree. I always look at the front end. If the sway bar bushings or the Pitman arm is bad, you’re going to be out a ton of cash for repairs.”

“Looks to me like you’re checking out the back end, not the front,” Daniel zinged, following the other man's gaze.

O’Neill looked at him in astonishment, then clutched his chest in mock agony.

“Ouch,” he deadpanned, acknowledging he’d been one-upped. Jackson hadn’t even bitten on the Ford car joke, just gone straight for the jugular. He was going to have to up his game to keep up with the younger man.

“So, crossing the river? What to look for?,” Jackson prompted, as they headed downstream, hugging the riverbank as it curved sharply out of sight to their right. “Unless you want to get into a full-on snark war this close to lunch time?”

“Well, there’s a couple different schools of thought there,” O’Neill expounded in a grumpy tone, pushing aside a small bush and ducking an overhanging branch. “The young, hip trail guide says to find a spot that’s wide and shallow with a slow current, and take your time crossing as a group. The surly mountain man says choose the narrowest point that’s not obviously dangerous and get across in a hurry, every man for himself.”

“And what’s the Jack O’Neill approach?,” Jackson asked, taking the lead and tramping through crackling underbrush. “Or do you subscribe to the surly mountain man creed?”

“Find a way across that doesn’t involve getting my feet wet,” O’Neill replied testily. “Tree trunk across the river, strategically placed boulders, that kind of thing.”

Jackson bulled his way through a thick patch of growth and stopped, abruptly enough that O’Neill almost plowed into him.

“How do you feel about bridges?,” he asked sarcastically, pulling a leafy limb out of O’Neill’s line of sight and disclosing a crumbling stone bridge.

“They really put a crimp in my style,” O’Neill snarked. “But you know for a fact that Carter will insist.”

“Blaming Sam is pretty low,” Jackson observed, moving to investigate the structure.

“Lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut,” O’Neill agreed, adopting his best surly mountain man voice as he followed his companion’s lead. 

Jackson cocked his head.

"Hmmmm, no. Doesn’t really work," he commented. 

"Lower than a gopher's basement?," O'Neill ventured. 

Jackson considered for a moment. 

"Better, but I still don’t like it."

He ran a strangely gentle hand over the exposed masonry of the bridge’s abutment. The mottled gray stone was spotted with lichens and thickly overgrown with vines and creepers. Had it been in a poorer state of repair, or partially collapsed, they might have missed it. As it was, his eye had caught on the overgrown span across the river and it had taken him a second or two to decide it wasn’t some sort of naturally-occurring berm or dyke.

“So very old,” he murmured absently, automatically analyzing the design and construction style.

“Carter, Teal’c,” O’Neill radioed. “We may have found a way across. Head south, about a hundred yards from where we split up.”

Carter gave curt acknowledgement, and O’Neill turned his attention to the structure that Jackson was pawing.

The bridge was constructed of two spans, one from each riverbank, that connected by means of a sturdy pylon in midstream. Whoever had built it wasn’t intimidated by scale; the finely wrought stone blocks it was built of were enormous. The walkway, if walkway it was, was wide enough for ten men to pass abreast.

“How’s it look?,” O’Neill quizzed.

Jackson was talking quietly to himself, off in his own little world, keeping up a running dialog of lithic structures and attributes and all manner of things that didn’t interest O’Neill in the slightest.

“EARTH TO DANIEL,” he announced loudly.

Jackson blinked sharply before coming back to the here and now.

“How’s it look?,” O’Neill repeated.

“Frankly, amazing.”

Jackson gestured at the structure.

“The structure and arrangement of these blocks is strongly reminiscent of the fortress of Sacsayhuaman in Peru.”

O’Neill had plenty of experience with Jackson’s chasing of metaphorical rabbits when archaeology was at stake. He couldn’t fault the young man; it _was_ his field of expertise, after all. Stifling the urge to yawn, he feigned interest.

“Not exactly what I meant, but please expound, professor.”

“The birthplace of the Inca in Peru was at a place called Cuzco, the ‘navel of the world’. Before the Spaniards demolished the majority of it, the most notable feature was an enormous stone fortress called Sacsayhuaman. The oldest parts of it predated the Inca, probably were either Killke culture or Tiwanaku in origin, but either way, they were characterized by megalithic stone structures with characteristic tightly-fitted mortarless construction.”

O’Neill’s eyes had glazed over when the Spanish were mentioned, and briefly perked back up at the mention of the Killke, but only because he thought Daniel was talking about killing someone. Once he figured out that wasn’t the case, he lapsed back into inattention, politely letting his companion rattle on to his heart’s content.

The thing was, when Jackson got really excited, like he was now, he would talk faster and faster, until his listener had no chance of keeping up with him. If O’Neill had been a fellow expert in the field, he might have been able to keep his head above water, figuratively speaking, but as it was, he found it best to nod sagely along, and interject an educated-sounding ‘Ah’ every so often.

After a minute, he became aware that Jackson has stopped speaking and was looking at him expectantly. He offered a final, "Ah," and quickly followed it up with a,"Yes, I see."

"You weren't even listening, " Jackson accused. 

"Well… no, I wasn't, " O'Neill confessed. "In other news, " he went on without giving the suddenly deflated archaeologist a chance to protest, "do you think it's safe?"

"Only one way to know for sure, " Jackson replied acidly. "You go first."

O'Neill cleared his throat. 

"I think we'll wait for the others. "

"Going to send Sam across first?," Jackson needled evilly. O’Neill favored him with a dirty look.

"On the off chance that there's an ichthyosaurus in there, I'd feel better if Sir Teal’c the Dragonslayer was here to shoot it. To be honest, I'm jumpy about splitting the team up in unknown circumstances like this. You'll notice I sent Teal’c with Sam."

"Whereas we're more expendable? "

"Whaddaya me 'we'?," O'Neill snarked. "I don't have to be faster than a dinosaur, I just have to be faster than _you_."

It was pure bluster and they both knew it; there were better odds of the Earth crashing into the sun than there were that Jack O’Neill would abandon someone in his command.

"With your knees? HA!," Jackson shot back.

After searching for a witty comeback and not finding one, O'Neill toggled the radio.

"Carter, Teal’c, you guys about here?"

"Close enough to hear you two bickering, " came Carter's reply. 

"That was not bickering; we were having a discussion, " he explained in as even a tone as he could muster. 

"That's a relief, sir. It sure sounded like bickering from over here. "

While O’Neill had been conferring on the radio, Jackson had ascended the abutment and was checking the sturdiness of the span. 

"Looks pretty solid," he called, poking his head over the parapet.

"Don't go getting too excited just yet," O'Neill cautioned.

With a groaning grinding sound, the stone block Jackson was leaning on gave way and splashed into the river, kicking up a wave of spray that drenched O’Neill. Jackson barely escaped taking a tumble by quickly jumping back.

"Daniel," O'Neill rumbled threateningly, vainly trying to brush water off of his BDU jacket.

“Holy cow,” Carter’s voice carried over as she and Teal’c emerged from the treeline. “That’s twice in one day, Daniel. First the MALP, now this.”

“Yeah, he’s a regular one-man wrecking crew,” O’Neill agreed, upending his P90 and pouring water out of the barrel.

“I think you may have just saved me from being killed,” Daniel confided to Carter as she joined him on the bridge span.

Teal’c eyed him appraisingly as he joined them, scrutinizing him closely.

“Whatever new exercises you are including in your physical training sessions are proving most effective, Daniel Jackson,” he declared in a low voice.

Jackson looked surprised.

“Thank you, Teal’c. That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said all day.”

“If the mutual admiration society meeting is over, how’s the bridge look?,” O’Neill groused, wringing out his hat. “Bill’s probably ruined. You were a good hat; sorry it's come to this. Just remember it was Daniel’s fault,” he grumbled, explaining to his dripping headgear.

“Everything is more or less intact,” Carter’s voice echoed back to him. “Lots of wear. Any ideas how old this is, Daniel?”

_You’re taking your life into your own hands woman_ , O’Neill thought. _Careful what you ask him._

“Somewhere between old and very old,” Jackson ventured vaguely. He caressed the stone of the parapet again.

“These are andesite blocks. It’s an igneous stone similar to basalt,” he began.

“Igneous being volcanoes?,” O’Neill interrupted.

Jackson nodded assent.

“There do not appear to be any volcanoes in the immediate vicinity,” Teal’c pointed out.

“They can be moved,” Jackson countered. “Humans have been doing strange things like that for millions of years. Anyway, this is really tough stone and it shows lots of weathering. Without anything to compare it to, I’m just guessing here, but I don’t think ten thousand years old would be completely outrageous.”

“So, around 8000 B.C.?,” O’Neill interrupted, _again_. “There’s something that sticks in my head about then. Seems like it should be significant, I just can’t… oh, yeah. That was when Ra started kidnapping Egyptians and transporting them to Abydos.”

“You think there’s a connection?,” Carter asked, forehead creasing into a frown.

“Just spitballing here, Major,” he replied airily. “I’m sure it’s pure coincidence, but if you follow coincidence far enough, you’ll find it tied to conspiracy.”

Carter and Jackson both stared at him in surprise.

“Damn, sir,” Carter finally ventured. “That was almost profound.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “It was. Mark my words, when all is said and done, there will be a Goa’uld at the bottom of this. A slimy, stinky, no-good, snake in the grass Goa’uld.”

He resettled his now only-slightly-less-soggy cap atop his head and gestured at the bridge.

“Onward and upward, lady and gents.”

The span proved more than sturdy enough to support them as they crossed. There was a tense moment as they reached the halfway point. The stones of the central pylon groaned as they approached, but nothing moved. Jackson pointed out that after possibly ten millennia hold up a bridge, they were entitled to a little grumbling.

“This had to be the work of a pretty advanced society,” Carter speculated to Jackson as they crossed the midway point. “From a design standpoint alone, they were a fairly civilized culture.”

“No arguments there,” he agreed. “Engineering questions aside, some of those larger blocks in the central support pillar had to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 or 65 tons. That kind of weight is _not_ easy to move around.”

“This must really whet your appetite for what’s coming,” she bantered.

“You have no idea.” 

The trip over the bridge was soon done. On the far side of the river a small stone platform or pier had been built out over the water, constructed of the same dense gray stone as the bridge. The vegetation on this side of the river was thicker, and most of the pier was choked with a tangle of creepers. They found themselves facing a nearly solid wall of verdant growth.

“You know,” O’Neill remarked, “it’s kind of funny to build a bridge out in the middle of nowhere. Usually these things have a road attached to either end.”

“Not so funny when you think about it,” Jackson rebutted. “Mother Nature does a great job of reclaiming her own when Man isn’t there beating her back. Think about the time scale involved here: possibly thousands of years. In a hundred years concrete will break down; in two hundred trees will have grown so thick you wouldn’t be able to tell anything was ever there. The bridge is made of tough stone or it would have fallen apart by now. As it is, it’s two-thirds overgrown.”

“Just think about the ruins at Angkor Wat, or what happened to Port Royal,” Carter pointed out.

“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; look on my works ye mighty, and despair,” Teal’c quoted Byron. “The handiwork of mankind is ephemeral.”

“This is turning out to be quite the red-letter day,” O’Neill commented, digging out his sunglasses. “We almost get eaten, Daniel turns into Superman, and now Teal’c is quoting Lord Byron. Carter, you’re up. Your turn to do something amazing and out-of-character.” He vainly searched for a dry part of his outfit to wipe water from the lenses, then gave up and put them on still dripping.

“Why not you, sir?,” she challenged.

“Ladies first, I insist,” he replied. “One of the advantages of being the eldest.”

Teal’c surreptitiously cleared his throat.

“All right,” O’Neill allowed. “One of the advantages of being in charge. Now, let’s find a way through this mess.”

After several minutes of searching, they found a narrow path through the thick cover. Following a brief examination, Teal’c pronounced it a game trail, used by the cloven-hoofed animals they had seen earlier. It was barely wide enough for them to pass through with their shoulders straight, but was much easier than hacking a path through the woods.

Teal’c led, staff blaster open and ready for action. Meeting anything hostile in such close quarters would be akin to getting in a gunfight in a phone booth: there would be no room and less time to react. Carter and Jackson were in the middle, and O’Neill brought up the rear, once again spending about half his time walking backward. 

He had a real phobia about being snuck up on. It didn’t help that the narrow confines of the trail strongly reminded him of a particular bamboo forest in the jungles of southeast Asia, where he’d had several hairy experiences many years ago. He gripped the P90 tighter, knuckles white with tension.

The birds were still singing overhead, brightly colored plumage shining in the light that filtered through the forest canopy. There several small rustlings in the underbrush, but nothing appeared to molest them. Gradually the trees began to thin. The game trail widened and petered out into light scrubby undergrowth. SG-1 had begun to relax and take a collective deep breath when the terrain began to slowly, inexorably trend upward. They had crossed the valley and were climbing the far wall.

After a few minutes, the slope increased dramatically, matching the angle they had climbed down on the other side. O’Neill’s knees began to creak, and he hoped this wouldn’t continue much longer; it was always easier going down a hill than up one. With a wince, he remembered they would have to climb back out of the valley again on their way back to the gate.

Without warning, both forest and slope stopped abruptly. They had made it. Spread in front of them was a rolling plain covered in short, scrubby grass, and perhaps a mile away from them reared the ominous black pile of the stone building. Nervously, they emerged from the trees, like their protohominid ancestors millions of years ago, eyes constantly scanning, alert for any sign of movement.

Jackson got his first good look at the structure they had travelled so far to see. It was truly a spectacular sight; more than he’d hoped for. There were spires, domes, and minarets; there was the regular blocky structure of the building proper; and surrounding all was a stone wall, parapeted and crenellated. It dawned on him that this wasn’t just a singular building, it was an entire _city_.

A short distance to their left ran the indistinct remains of what had been either a path or a road. Given the apparent age and state of decay, it could have been either. They trod the dusty way, eyes ever alert. This plain was drier, more savannah-like than the one close to the stargate had been.

“No stock pens, no sign of buildings outside the wall, not even a shepherd’s hut,” O’Neill commented. Jackson laughed by way of answer.

“They’re all around you, Jack.”

He pointed to irregularly spaced humps that dotted the plain.

“A hundred, two hundred, a thousand years ago, those were mud brick huts. They’ve been weathered down to mounds of dirt. Nature always wins in the end.”

"So it's good money this is a dead city?," O'Neill probed.

"Unless they've started eating dirt, I'd say so," Jackson replied, borrowing some of O’Neill’s patented snark. 

As they walked along, he pointed out the ancient irrigation ditches, half filled in places, and overgrown with the alien analog of cactus. Frowns were on display as their eyes swept over the arid plain that stretched on all sides of the city to the forest edge, which circled in a vast, dim ring. A silence as absolute as that of the forest brooded over towers and minarets.

The sun was high in the sky when they stood before a great gate in the wall, in the shadow of a lofty rampart. No helmeted heads appeared, no challenges were issued. Rust flecked the metal bracings of the mighty portal. Dust and debris hung thickly on hinge and hasp and bolt-studded panel.

“Any bets on whether it’s locked?,” O’Neill asked.

“That’s kinda the point of having a gate,” Jackson pointed out.

O’Neill untabbed his P90 and handed it to Carter.

“Sir Teal’c, if you’ll lend a hand, we’ll see about getting this thing open.”

Teal’c handed his staff to Jackson, and joined O’Neill in putting their shoulders to the right-hand door panel. For almost a minute they pushed and panted and strained at the massive portal. On impulse, Jackson handed Teal’c’s staff and his P90 to the increasingly burdened Carter, and joined the other two in trying to open the recalcitrant barrier.

After a second, the panel gave slightly, then with a screech of tortured metal, something snapped and the portal gave way and flopped open, precipitating O’Neill and Teal’c to the dusty ground. Jackson alone remained standing, staring through the gate. 

Teal’c helped O’Neill to his feet, and the older man found himself wondering if maybe Jackson _had_ managed to acquire super-strength somehow. Retrieving his weapon, Jackson noticed Carter standing stock-still, gaze locked on the wide-open gate.

They were not looking into an open street or court as one would have expected. The opened door gave directly into a long, broad hall which ran away from them until it grew indistinct in the distance. It was of heroic proportions, dwarfing anything they had ever seen before.

Well, anything _most_ of them had ever seen before.

Carter was rooted in place, staring in stricken horror, feeling a twisty sense of _deja vu_.

“Remember to wipe your feet on the mat,” O’Neill joked. “Be good houseguests, guys; we want to get invited back.” 

He entered the hall without a second thought, Teal’c following in his footsteps, staff at the ready. 

“Sam?,” Jackson asked, gently taking her elbow. “You ok?”

She shook her head slowly, not trusting herself to speak, fear still dancing in her eyes.

“You told me what you saw seemed Egyptian. Was it the same as this?,” he probed softly.

Gradually, she reasserted control of herself. 

No, this wasn’t her dream at all. Similar, but not the same. The feel was all wrong. The other had felt evil, malignant; this felt dead and dusty.

“No,” she finally managed to grate through clenched teeth, then forced herself to relax. Jumping at shadows would do no good, especially in a place that looked like it would be full of them.

“Deep, even breaths,” Jackson advised. “We’re all here together.”

“That wasn’t patronizing at all,” she said sarcastically. He seemed taken aback.

“Was it?,” he asked in confusion. “It was supposed to be reassuring. I guess I’m worse at this than I thought.”

“You two coming?,” O’Neill’s snarky voice echoed down the hallway.

Jackson was turning to go when Carter impulsively grabbed his sleeve.

“Thanks,” she said simply.

“Any time,” he smiled, patting her hand.

The floor was made of a curious red stone, cut into tiles that seemed to smoulder with the reflection of a static flame. The walls were a shiny green material. Jackson ran a tentative hand over them, feeling the slick, soaplike texture.

“Jade!,” he exclaimed in awe. “I’ve never seen so much at one time. Good God, this hallway must have cost a king’s ransom to build.”

The vaulted ceiling was a light blue stone, adorned with clusters of green gemstones that glowed with a noxious radiance. He wondered how many centuries had passed since the light of day had passed into the great hall through that open door. 

Sunlight was finding its way somehow into the recesses of that great gallery, and they quickly saw its source. High up in the vaulted ceiling skylights were set in slot-like openings, translucent sheets of some unfamiliar crystal. In the stretches of shadow between them, the green jewels gleamed like the eyes of hunting cats. Beneath their feet, the dully lurid floor smouldered with the changing hues and colors of flame. It was like treading the floors of hell with evil stars blinking overhead.

Three balconied galleries ran along each side of the hall, one above the other.

“A four-story house,” O’Neill grunted. “Must run up a hell of a utility bill.”

“This hall goes all the way to the roof,” Jackson mused.

“And it’s longer than the street I grew up on,” Carter added.

“I seem to see a door at the other end of the hall,” Teal’c said.

“Well then, you’ve got eagle eyes, because I can’t see crap,” O’Neill remarked jealously.

They turned into an open door at random, and traversed a series of empty chambers, floored like the hall, and with walls of the same green jade, occasionally adorned with friezes of bronze, gold, or silver. In the ceilings the green gems were set, and their light proved ghostly and elusive. Under the witch-fire glow the intruders moved like specters. 

Nowhere did they find any windows or doors opening into streets or courts. Each door merely opened into another chamber or hall. Cobwebs hung in the corners, but there was no perceptible accumulation of dust on the floor, or on the tables and seats of marble, jade and carnelian which occupied the chambers.

“Why don’t we come to a street?,” Carter wondered. “This place must be as big as the Pentagon.”

Jackson stopped, studying the nearest carvings intently, playing the beam of his flashlight back and forth. They appeared to show random scenes of people at play, singing, dancing, lovemaking, feasting. Some of the depictions were sufficiently explicit to cause Carter to blush.

“I don’t think that’s physically possible,” O’Neill commented, looking closely at one.

“It is,” Teal’c affirmed from his side. “It is simply a matter of momentum.”

“They must have lived a peaceful life,” Jackson interjected,”or they’d have scenes of wars and fighting.”

“Well, at least we know they didn’t die of plague,” O’Neill said, abruptly changing the subject. “Otherwise we’d find skeletons all over the place. I wonder why…?,” he trailed off.

“Jack, look closely at this,” Jackson said, indicating a section of sculptured band. “What race would you say these people are?”

O’Neill squinted, then obediently looked as closely as he could.

“Human, but beyond that, I couldn’t really say, Daniel,” he finally admitted.

“I couldn’t either,” Jackson agreed. “They’re like nothing I’ve seen before. Their skulls are dolichocephalic.”

“Care to run that by me again, in English, this time?,” O’Neill groused.

“Their skulls are elongated. Not freakishly, but enough that you’d notice if you passed them by in downtown Colorado Springs.”

“Well, sure, Colorado Springs,” O’Neill agreed. “But not Denver. Everybody knows Denver is full of freaks.”

“The point is,” Jackson continued, irritated at the digression, “I don’t think they’re human. At least not fully so, not like we understand it."

“Dr. Jackson,” O’Neill said sarcastically, “it’s astounding that an alien world would have… aliens.”

“You’re such a dick,” Jackson observed acidly.

“Yes, I am,” O’Neill agreed easily. “Now, we might as well split up and make a proper search instead of wandering around at random.”

They turned the next corner, which should have let them back into the great hall they had first entered the city through. It was instead a smaller hall. Entering the doorway, Jackson tripped over something just inside the room that had been hidden in the ever-present gloom. Stifling a curse, he got to his feet as O’Neill shined his light on the object.

It was a man.

Or rather, it was a man’s body.

He was quite dead, having had his throat cut from ear to ear.


	3. Blades in the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things pick up a little. 
> 
> Let's face if, if one dead body spices things up a somewhat, then several should spice it up a whole lot, right?  
> Too bad Gordon Ramsay never learned the value of corpses.
> 
> Language warning, but that really pales in comparison to war, don'tcha know.  
> There is blood, death, drama, and sex.
> 
> I totally lied about the sex.  
> There is no sex.
> 
> Enjoy.

Jackson recoiled in shock and surprise, while Teal’c and Carter leaned forward for a better look. Organized mayhem was their stock in trade, so this was business, not pleasure.

“Is it… is it…?,” Jackson stammered. 

Tripping over dead bodies where none were expected was enough to rattle anybody.

“It’s not a historical artifact, if that’s what you mean,” O’Neill said. “What with the body still being warm and all.”  
“He is also quite human,” Teal’c observed.  
"Not that doll-lick-'o-whatsis Daniel was talking about?," O'Neill asked for clarification.  
"Dolichocephalic," Jackson corrected, regaining his composure. He knelt, giving the corpse a quick once-over.  
"Nope," he said. "He's as human as you or me." He waited a beat. "Well, as human as me, at least."

Jackson could never resist getting in a dig at O’Neill whenever possible. 

The dead man in no way resembled the figures depicted on the friezes. He was a little above average height, and dark complected, in a way that strongly suggested far southern Mexico or Central America. He wore nothing but a scanty lionclout, twisted around his muscular hips, and a leather girdle a hand's breadth wide around his lean waist. An empty scabbard was thrust through the girdle, and a nearby silvery gleam showed where he had dropped a short sword. His long black hair hung in lanky strands around his shoulders, giving him a wild appearance. He was gaunt, but knots and cords of muscle stood out on his limbs, without that fleshy padding that gives a pleasing symmetry of contour. He was built with an economy that was almost repellent. 

Dead bodies are macabre enough under any circumstances, but discovering a fresh one, violently killed, in a city presumed to be deserted was even more unsettling. The body's face was locked in a rictus mask of fear. He had seen his demise coming, and it had not been a pleasant one. The hellish green light radiating from the gems in the ceiling made the whole tableau more ghastly still.

O’Neill knelt and surveyed the wound, then looked over the dropped sword. It was eighteen inches long, suitable for stabbing or slashing, and honed to a razor’s edge. It was also clean.

"Poor bastard never got a stroke in," he muttered, then looked around. "This guy didn't cut his own throat. That means there's more around, and at least one of them isn't friendly. Stay frosty, folks."

Amid much creaking and popping of knees, he straightened. 

"I thought this was supposed to be a dead city," he grumbled. "Did we just get deus ex machina-ed?"

"No, sir," Carter answered. "That would be when the Asgard swoop in and rescue us at the last second."

"Plot device?," he guessed again. 

"No," Jackson shook his head. "In this case, that would be the MALP."

"The MALP is clearly a macguffin," O'Neill argued.

"Sorry to disagree, sir," Carter interrupted, "but Daniel’s right. A macguffin is something you seek but never find. We found the MALP right off the bat."

"So this is just a random dead guy," O'Neill summed up, dejectedly.

"Dead guy's plenty mysterious on his own," Carter pointed out. Jackson nodded agreement. 

"Oh, by the way, Daniel," O'Neill went on conversationally, "you've got a bunch of dead guy on your sleeve. Musta rolled through it when you fell."

Jackson looked at his sleeves, and sure enough, the right one was dripping blood. With a sulphrous oath, he tore his jacket off and tossed it aside.

"You could have told me sooner," he groused. 

"Just noticed it," O'Neill said with an innocent shrug.

“So I guess this means we’re not splitting up?,” Carter hazarded a guess.

“Nope,” O’Neill confirmed. “Matter of fact, I’m giving a lot of thought to the idea that it’s time for us to go home.”

“Jack, no!,” Jackson protested. “We just got here; we can’t leave already. We haven’t even scratched the surface of this place.”

“We scratched hard enough to turn up a fresh corpse," O’Neill pointed out.

“For which we have zero context. For all we know, he may have been a criminal, or been involved in a lover’s quarrel, or… or…,” running out of possibilities, Jackson faded off into silence. O’Neill favored him with an inquisitive look.

“Justice appears to be swift and harsh in this town,” he rebutted, gesturing at the body. Jackson nodded and waved his hands in his frustration.

“Yes,” he agreed, “primitive societies often lack nuance in their administration of justice. That’s no reason to hustle us out of here this quickly. We’ve been lots of places where people were primitive, but things turned out well enough for us.”

“Daniel, the risk/reward equation is not working in your favor here. Even if there’s a lot more of these people and they all turn out to be extra-friendly, I’m just not seeing anything worth possibly putting the team in danger.”

"The decision may be out of your hands," Teal’c rumbled softly. "Several men approach." With his staff he pointed to the hall they had just quit. 

"How do we play this, sir?," Carter asked. 

"We don't, " O'Neill answered sharply. "We're not doing the meet-and-greet thing until we get a better feel for the natives."

He glanced around and spied a staircase leading to a balcony on the next level.

"Up the stairs, " he ordered. "We'll observe, and if they look like unsavory characters, we're outta here."

Obediently, Carter mounted the staircase. Jackson dawdled, and O’Neill grabbed a fistful of black t-shirt. 

"Hustle, Daniel. I don't wanna get into a shootout if we don't have to."

Jackson saw the wisdom in that line of reasoning and followed Carter. Teal’c had remained motionless by the doorway, listening intently.

"They have split into two or more groups," he whispered urgently to O’Neill. 

"Help me move this guy," O'Neill hissed back.

They each grabbed an arm and dragged the corpse to one side of the doorway, then silently scooted up the stairs after their comrades. 

Carter had staked out a good position a few yards down the upper gallery, finding an ornately carved column that offered good cover. The walkway they were on made a complete circuit of the room, forming a shadow-shrouded balcony to the hall below. O’Neill nervously eyed several doors opening into other rooms. This place was a veritable rabbit warren. The four of them knelt behind the stone balcony with only their heads visible, and those only observable by an astute onlooker.

"Guess I was wrong about the Goa’uld," O'Neill grumbled. 

"We're not out of here yet, sir," Carter said consolingly. "There's still time. "

"Carter, one of your finer qualities is your optimism."

A man, almost identical to the dead man, appeared in the doorway. He stooped in a semi-crouch, head slowly turning from side to side. He grasped a wide-tipped blade in his right hand, and all four observers could see it shake with the intensity of emotion that gripped him. He was afraid, trembling in the throes of some dire fear. As his head turned in their direction, they could see the wild light of terror blazing in his eyes through a tangle of snaky black hair.  


He did not see them and silently gilded into the hall on tiptoe. He glared at the sight of the man on the floor, and said something that sounded like, "Chicmec!," in a staccato tone.

He quickly stepped over and grasped the other's shoulder, rolling him onto his back. The head lolled back, disclosing the severed throat. With a choking cry, the man recoiled in horror, quickly springing back, face twisted into an ashy mask of fear. Coiled for panicked flight, he suddenly froze, staring into the darkness. 

In the shadows beneath the balcony, a cold gleam began to grow, a light that was not part of the hellish radiance from the fire-stones set into the ceiling. O’Neill felt his hair stir as he watched it, for as the radiance began to grow, there floated a skull, human yet oddly misshapen, and it was from this skull that the spectral light seemed to emanate. It hung there like a disembodied head, growing more and more distinct; human, and yet not human as he knew it.

The man stood motionless, rooted in place, eyes locked on the repulsive apparition. The thing moved out from the wall, and a dim shadow moved with it. Slowly the shadow became visible as a man-like form, whose naked torso and limbs shone dull white with the color of bleached bone. The bare skull on its shoulders grinned eyelessly in the midst of its demonic halo, and the man confronting it seemed unable to take his eyes from it. He stood still, sword dangling from nerveless fingers, face locked in the spellbound mask of the hypnotized. 

O'Neill heard a gasp from either Carter or Jackson, he couldn’t tell which, nor could he tell if it was of fear or surprise. He realized it was not terror alone that paralyzed the stranger. Some hellish quality of that throbbing glow had robbed him of his power to think and act. He himself, safely above the scene, still felt the pull of a nameless emanation that was a threat to sanity.

The horror swept towards its victim and he moved at last, but only to drop his sword and sink to his knees, covering his eyes with his hands. Dumbly, he awaited the stroke of the blade that now gleamed in the apparition’s hand as it reared above him like Death triumphant over mankind. 

Carter stirred, sluggishly raising her P90 into firing position, every movement requiring a conscious, grinding effort. O’Neill stopped her with a hand on her and arm and a head shake; this was not their fight. The very act of stopping her seemed to drain every last drop of energy he had.

Teal’c alone seemed unaffected. He had watched the appearance of the ghostly figure with interest; having never witnessed a specter firsthand, it was a new and fascinating sensation. The ghosts of long-dead aliens held no terror for him, so when he saw the stranger collapse to his knees and the apparition draw a knife, he knew in an instant what was about to happen. Without conscious thought, he vaulted the stone parapet and dropped the twelve feet to the floor below, landing on his feet with the grace and silence of a hunting tiger.

The ghostly figure instantly shifted to meet him, and the blade flashed down in a silvery arc. Teal’c met the attack by shifting his staff and belting the ghost in the stomach with the counterweighted end hard enough to shove him back several feet. The shadowy figure gave a very un-ghost-like “OOF!” and staggered backwards. 

Several other vague forms emerged from the dim recesses of the balcony. Teal’c shook the kneeling man fiercely as they drew closer.

“Your enemies are upon you; rise and meet them!”

The dull, blank stare that met his gaze quickly gained new life as the horrific spell of the apparition was broken. He surged to his feet, grabbing his blade from the floor all in one motion, and launched into a frenzied attack.

“Oh, Hell,” complained O’Neill; this was exactly what he’d hoped to avoid. “Carter, Daniel, stay here. Shoot to defend only. And watch out for ricochet.”

With that, he was gone, taking the stairs two at a time.

The new arrivials spread out, four on either side of the skull-wearer. They were similar in appearance to every other person they’d seen thus far: same lean build, same stringy black hair. This group looked dirtier than the two they’d ambushed. In addition, each had a white skull roughly painted on his torso. Blades appeared in their hands as if by magic.

Teal’c briefly considered energizing his staff and mowing the entire group down. They had used subterfuge and some kind of technological trickery to reduce their enemy to a state of powerlessness, ready to offer his throat to the knife. Such people were treacherous and not to be trusted, but that decision would be for O’Neill, as commander, to make. He left the staff powered down and used it like a club.

Their new acquaintance had not hesitated, charging into the left wing of the group with wild abandon, blade swinging recklessly. Teal’c would not be afforded the choice of engaging or not; the four figures on his side silently spread out and rushed at him in a group. 

“Single shots, Daniel,” Carter whispered urgently on the overhead walkway. “Use your laser, pick a target, one shot, one kill, move on to the next. No full auto. Bullets start bouncing around, we lose friends.”

Teal’c swung his staff in a wide arc that bashed one man in the side of the head and continued on in a whizzing blow that swept the legs out from under a second. He whipped the counterweight up sharply, catching a third under the chin with a vicious snap of breaking bones. In his estimation, not killing people didn't preclude seriously messing them up.

The man wearing the glowing skull hung back, preferring to let his minions deal with the intruders. Seeing Teal’c quickly dispatch three of their opponents, O’Neill sprinted to the left side, where the impetuous assault of the original attacker was flagging. He had dealt one of the skull - men a brutal stab in the belly and backhanded a second to the ground, but the man on the ground had latched onto his leg with the tenacity of a lobster and appeared to be trying to gnaw his kneecap off. He could have dealt with that one with a quick flick of the sword, but the third was pressing him with a furious flurry of sword strokes. The fourth circled around to his undefeated side and was about to run him through when O'Neill arrived. 

Not wanting to start shooting unless it was absolutely necessary, he met the slashing blade with his P90's stock, knocking it aside and buttstroking the attacker in the face on the return swipe. He felt the sickening crunch of bone as the man collapsed in a nerveless heap. 

Seeing the tide turning against his side, the skull wearer raised his sword to strike O'Neill's undefended back.

Carter had been silently fuming, watching as first Teal’c and then O’Neill had waded into the fray. Despite her warning to Jackson, it had looked like neither one of them was going to get a shot off. When she saw the skull chieftain moving to stab O’Neill, she whipped the P90 to her shoulder. The weapon was still set to full automatic, and there wasn't time to change it. She ripped off a half-dozen rounds, being careful to not let the rifle creep. With a sigh of satisfaction, she saw her shots hit center mass and he crumpled lifeless to the ground. The skull rolled free to disclose the dark face of a man no different than any of the others in the chamber.

_Right in the ten ring_ , she thought with a wolfish smile. _That’s what happens when you bring a sword to a gunfight._

Teal’c shifted the staff to his left hand and met the charge of his final attacker with a brutal clothesline. Up on the second level Carter and Jackson could clearly hear the sodden snap of his neck breaking. The first man beat his assailant's blade aside and stabbed him through the neck, then dexterously reversed the sword and sheathed it's full length in the torso of the man biting his leg. He put his foot on the body's collarbone and pulled the blade free with an obscene suckling sound.

The entire fight hadn’t lasted twenty seconds, and except for the ring and clash of steel, had been conducted in eerie silence. Neither shout nor scream had been uttered during the melee.

Before anyone could stop him, the surviving native had stooped and cut the throat of O’Neill’s first unconscious assailant.  


"HEY!," O'Neill objected, a moment too late. 

"That was unnecessary," he finished lamely. 

The man made no reply, only stared at him with burning eyes through a tangle of stringy black hair. Teal’c, Jackson, and Carter subtly shifted to screen the other combatants, a couple of whom were beginning to show signs of returning consciousness. 

The man eyed them appraisingly, then spoke.

"Who are you? What do you in Xuchotl?" He rushed on without waiting for a reply. "Whether you be gods or demons, it matters not; you are friends, else you had not slain my enemies. You have killed the Burning Skull! It was but a man after all! We thought it a demon they had conjured from the depths of the catacombs. Listen!".  


He stopped short in his ravings and stiffened, straining his ears in his intensity. They heard nothing.

"We must hasten," he whispered. " _They_ are west of the great hall. _They_ may be around us even now."

"Who is 'they'?," O'Neill demanded.

The man stared at him uncomprehendingly, as if he found his ignorance hard to grasp.

"They?," he stammered. "Why… why the people of Xotolanc, the clan of the men you slew. They who dwell by the eastern gate."

“So there are more of you?,” Jackson asked.

“Yes! Yes!,” he was shaking in apprehension. “Come away! Come quick! We must return to Tecuhtli!”

“Where is that?,” O’Neill asked suspiciously.

“The quarter by the western gate,” he answered. Great beads of sweat formed on his forehead and his eyes blazed in fear.

Jackson shifted slightly, studying the skull the chief had worn. It was elongated, just as had been the figures in the carvings. As he stared, it began to take on a spectral, pulsing quality, and he found he couldn’t tear his gaze away. The empty sockets glared at him angrily and he felt his reason beginning to slip away. He was only vaguely aware of some commotion going on in the room. The whole of his world centered on the unearthly skull.

The rest of the team didn't notice his mesmerized stare, but the native did.  


"Do not look at it!," he hissed. "In life it was the head of a king of sorcerers. In death it still holds evil magic. DO NOT LOOK AT IT!"

Jackson was unresponsive, spellbound. 

"Daniel?," Carter said, gently shaking his shoulder. 

"The evil has taken him," the man spat with a curse. "We must go before others return. He is lost to us."

In answer, Teal’c swung the heavy counterweight of his staff at the skull, shattering it to pieces. Jackson relaxed with a sigh and they saw the light of sanity return to his eyes.

"What the hell was that?," he asked, blinking heavily.

"Exactly my question," O'Neill said angrily, looking at the stranger in a very unfriendly fashion.

"We must go," he said urgently. "The Xotalancas will be on this side of the great hall."

"Not 'til we get some answers," O'Neill said flatly. “What the hell is going on here?”

The stranger sighed, as if dealing with difficult children.

“My name is Techotl. I am of Tecuhtli. I and Chicmec,” he gestured at the corpse by the doorway, “came into the Halls of Science to try and ambush some of the Xotalancas. We became separated and I returned here to find him with his gullet slit. The Burning Skull did it, just as he would have slain me had you not killed him. Hurry now, others may be stealing upon us!”

O’Neill scowled at him. He sensed intelligence behind this rigamarole, but the rest was meaningless to him. Techotl was not a reassuring figure, with his lean muscle-knotted frame and snaky hair. In his eyes, behind the look of terror, lurked a wierd light he had never seen in the eyes of a man wholly sane. Despite this, he seemed sincere enough in his protestations.

“Come!,” he begged. “You are strangers. How you came here, I know not, but if you were god or demon, you would already know these things. You must be from beyond the great forest, whence our ancestors came. Come quickly, before the Xotalancas find us and slay us!”

O’Neill harrumphed. This whole situation was beginning to leave a bad taste in his mouth. One other thing was bothering him.  


“Those guys were not there a minute ago," he grumped, pointing at the shadowy overhang under the balcony. He dug a flashlight out of his vest and played the beam around, not seeing anything that could explain the sudden appearance of nine full-grown men.

“There are many secret passageways in Xuchotl,” Techotl answered, “some known to us, some known only to Xotalanc, and some known to both. Doubtless there is one there known only to them. Let us go, quickly! Tolkemec will answer your questions.”

“Who’s Tolkemec?,” O’Neill asked.

“Our war-leader, the mightiest among us.”

“Huddle up, group,” O’Neill ordered after a moment’s thought. As they clustered around him, he glanced at each in turn, trying to gauge their mood. “I’m beginning to get a seriously bad vibe about this place,” he confessed.

“Anything specific?,” Carter asked.

“Among other things, I’m not really sure these guys aren’t batshit crazy.”

“Jack, we don’t have any frame of reference for what’s going on here,” Jackson commented softly, giving Techotl a nervous look. “If aliens landed in Berlin at the height of the cold war, it might be hard for them to figure out what was going on, too. We know there’s two sides, but that’s about it.”

“Which leads me to my next concern: our sudden appearance may radically shift the balance of power here. Like you said, we have no idea who the good guys are, or even if there are any good guys.”

“We haven’t seen anything that would constitute a threat to us, personally,” Carter pointed out. “Nothing past swords, which aren’t much of a match for firearms.”

“That could change at any moment,” Teal’c commented. O’Neill frowned.

“Teal’c’s right,” he agreed. “All it takes is one bad actor getting lucky with a spear or bow and arrow, and we start taking casualties.”

“You were a lot more blase when we were just facing dinosaurs,” Jackson pointed out.

“Because I could see them coming from farther away,” O’Neill rebutted, making up his mind. “All right, we’re outta here. This isn’t our fight. We’ll report, and if Hammond is curious enough, maybe send a diplomatic team.”

“This is literally the most fascinating situation we’ve come across in years, and you’re just going to walk away from it,” Jackson complained. “We have a human culture superimposed over a vanished alien civilization, apparently using some of the old race’s technology, and you’re not even curious?”

“What technology?,” O’Neill spat. “All we’ve seen is a bunch of half-wits running around in loincloths swinging swords.”

“The skull,” Jackson said sharply. “That’s technology, unless you’re about to start believing in magic and demons.”

O’Neill chewed his lip, then shook his head.

“No. Whatever it is isn’t worth getting involved in someone else’s war.” 

He turned to Techotl. “Good luck with your ambushes, young man,” he said sincerely. “We’re leaving. We may be back, we may not. That’s for other people to decide.”

“The gods?,” Techotl asked.

O’Neill smirked, thinking of Hammond.

“Something like that,” he agreed, then gestured toward the doorway. 

"Colonel, what's our rules of engagement? ," Carter asked. O'Neill's grin grew wider. 

"Like Steve Miller said, 'don't want to get caught up in all that funky shit goin' down in the city ', Major. "

"Roger that, sir," she grinned back. "Funky shit detector set to maximum. "

"Aaah, Carter," he sighed, "what would I do without you? "

"Same thing you do now, sir, only not quite as good. "

"Teal’c, " he said brightly, "think you can find our way out of here?"

"Without a doubt, " the hulking Jaffa rumbled in answer.

"All right, you got point. Despite the fact we just did a number on the natives, we're not actually declaring hostilities yet. If you see anybody, light 'em up with flashlights, and we'll go from there. Techotl's people seem a little friendlier, so try not to scare them too bad, big guy "

"Should we go with flashlights full time?," Jackson asked. 

O’Neill shook his head.

"That'll just announce our presence to anyone watching," he answered. "If we can sneak through without anyone being the wiser, I'll be a happy camper."

Teal’c nodded acquiescence and lead off, carefully avoiding the puddle of blood leaking out of the late, lamented Chicmec. Carter followed. After a long moment’s consideration about whether it was worthwhile to argue the point, Jackson followed suit, and O’Neill brought up the rear. Glancing back, he saw a dejected looking Techotl sharply highlighted in the greenish witch-fire light of the illumination stones.

SG-1 had traversed four galleries before entering the one where they had met Techotl. They had re-crossed two when Teal’c suddenly froze in place and had out a hand, palm down. Carter and Jackson immediately knelt in place and O’Neill silently scuttled to the Jaffa's side.

"The chamber opposite this is occupied, " he rumbled quietly. "I heard the sound of footsteps and metal striking stone."

"Can you get us around them?," O'Neill hissed. Teal’c nodded.

"I believe so. This building follows a regular pattern. There should be another hall that runs parallel to this one."

O'Neill patted his shoulder, and Teal’c made a sharp left into another gallery. The next hall was a duplicate of the one they had just departed, and O’Neill found himself wondering how the natives kept them all straight. 

They proceeded through three more rooms before turning back in the direction of the main gallery. Teal’c stealthily stepped into the next chamber and was immediately bowled off his feet by three shadowy forms. A fourth stood over the tangled mass of arms and legs with a sword raised threateningly. 

Without hesitation, Carter sprinted full-on into the man, giving him the bum's rush. At the last second, she lowered her shoulder and plowed into his lower back, knocking him sprawling with a whuff! of impact. A heartbeat later Jackson and O’Neill rushed into the room, flashlights ripping through the gloom.

None of the four attackers was painted with the dull white skull of the Xotalancas. 

"FRIENDS!," Jackson shouted, hands outstretched in what he hoped was a peaceable manner. "We're friends!"

Teal’c bodily shoved two of the lanky men off, and bounded to his feet. The two groups eyed each other, SG-1 speculatively, the natives sullenly. They were a ragged-looking bunch, with the same painfully lean build and scraggly black hair as Techotl. There were differences in the patterns woven into their loincloths, but aside from that, they might have been cast from the same mold.

O’Neill was about to speak, when, without warning, a great weight struck his back, bearing him to the ground. He twisted in midair, coming face to face with a snarling visage painted white to resemble a skull.

His attacker wrapped sinewy arms tightly around him and began trying to tear at his throat like a wild beast. Unable to worm away, he jammed the point of his chin into the other's eye socket while kneeing him in the groin. The grip loosened, and he bucked free, scrambling to his feet and backhanding his erstwhile assailant. 

A dozen other figures, all painted with the dull white skull of the Xotalancas, burst into the room from the opposite door.

"Oh, Hell," he grumbled. 

Without preamble, the Xotalancas launched a murderous assault on the room's inhabitants, disregarding the difference between Tecuhtli and SG-1. For their part, the Tecuhtli didn’t hesitate, either. O'Neill's inclination was to hang back and let them duke it out amongst themselves, but a moment later, several more men followed the one who had blindsided him, pouring out of the chamber at their rear.

They weren't going to be given the chance to remain neutral..

"TAKE 'EM OUT!," he boomed, voice echoing above the din of combat. He racked the action of the P90 and mowed down two Xotalancas, then they were too close for rifles and things degenerated into a barroom brawl.

Teal’c had been spoiling for a fight since being ambushed, so he was only too happy to oblige. He swept a pair aside with his staff, then dropped the weapon as they swarmed him. The closest analog to an angry Jaffa in close quarters would be being locked in a phone booth with an angry grizzly bear. Honestly, he didn’t need the staff. He rained muderous blows with sledgehammer fists.

Carter didn’t bother with her P90, seeing that they were going to be fighting at halitosis distance. She pulled her sidearm, and grabbed it by the barrel, using the pistol as a short club. With gun in one hand and knife in the other, she waded into the fray.

Jackson didn't have the least desire to fight, but not being given the choice, decided to give as good an account of himself as he could. Despite his academic tendencies, over the years he had learned enough dirty tricks from both O’Neill and Teal’c to not be a sitting duck. He stayed on the outside of the scrum, picking off the occasional Xotalanca who stepped back from the melee. 

The Tecuhtli were not letting the grass grow under their feet. Fueled by insane hatred, they tore into their enemies with sword and knife and bare hands. The four Tecuhtli and four SG team members were outnumbered at least two to one and the numbers quickly began to tell. 

Two of their allies went down at the first pass, and O’Neill started trying to figure out how to disengage far enough to bring their firearms to bear. Teal’c was waging a one-man war: four bodies were strewn around his feet, and he grabbed the next man by the throat, bodily throwing him into another who was about to stab Carter in the back. Jackson caught a straggler, and gave him a chop to the neck before sweeping his legs out from under him with a brutal low kick. Carter employed every underhanded infighting trick she'd ever learned and invented a few new ones on the spot, but the tide was inexorably turning against them.

O'Neill was fuming. This was getting out of hand. They were giving better than they got, but it was only a matter of time before one of his people got hurt. He’d gladly buzz-gun every sonofabitch on this planet before he let that happen. It was time for the patented O’Neill tactical genius to kick in and figure a way out of this jam. He was suddenly bowled over sideways and tumbled to the ground, head smacking into the stone floor with a meaty _whack_. Sparks swam before his eyes as he fought to hold on to consciousness. To be incapacitated in a fight like this was certain death. He saw a Xotalanca sneaking up behind Jackson and tried to croak a warning, but to no avail. Darkness swirled around him, and his eyes slid shut.

Carter saw O’Neill go down and tried to work her way over toward him, but the press of bodies was too great. She clubbed a man over the head with her pistol butt and rammed her knife into the skull painted on his chest, feeding him an unnecessary front kick as he dropped like a dynamited bridge. Despite her efforts, she was slowly pushed to the far side of the scrum, and found herself fighting side by side with Teal’c. 

The two remaining Tecuhtli ranged on either side of them, hacking and stabbing for all they were worth. She stepped back, dropping the pistol and knife and grabbing the P90. She triggered the weapon, spraying a stream of lead overhead, not caring where the bullets ricocheted off to. The rifle's report was deafening in the stone hall.

The Xotalancas gave back, and Teal’c snatched up his staff, energizing the power cell and blasting the nearest attacker. While the firearm may have rattled them, the staff took all the remaining fight out of the Xotalancas. They melted back into the darkness, disappearing into the shadows like ghosts. Carter breathed a sigh of relief. 

The fight was over.

But O'Neill and Jackson were gone.


	4. Transitions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Profuse apologies for the lateness of the update. Life, as they say, keeps getting in the way.  
> There's a couple of stylistic hiccoughs in here that the platform won't let me fix for some reason. When you come across one, just know that its galls me like hot coals that I can't straighten it out.
> 
> Chapter four includes several unwelcome realizations, plus a degree of minor bamboozlement that I'm sure runs counter to some official regulations somewhere. Minor violence is done to home furnishings. Warn IKEA.  
> On second thought, get to reading, you can call IKEA later...
> 
> \----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Carter sagged dejectedly, allowing the rifle to slip from suddenly numb hands to dangle at the end of its tether. This was the bloodiest fight she had ever been involved in, and she was really feeling it. Firearms punched nice neat holes in people from a distance; knives and clubs were so much more... _intimate_. You really got the chance to look someone in the eyes while unwrapping their anatomy. Added to that, the sudden and unnerving disappearance of Jackson and O’Neill left her in charge. Right now, responsibilities be damned, she felt like she was doing good to remain upright and pant for breath.

Noticing her shocked appearance, Teal’c collected her pistol and knife, wiping the last clean on the loincloth of a fallen Xotalanca. As a Jaffa, he had been involved in messier squabbles than this, but not for several decades. The Goa’uld ruled through fear, systematically crushing any kind of resistance with overwhelming force. The only time he had faced opponents on equal footing was while fighting other Goa’uld. This hand-to-hand business had a certain zest to it that fighting with rifles and blasters lacked. He was honest enough to admit he missed it, a little. 

He handed the weapons to her.

“Thanks,” she said unenthusiastically, mechanically sheathing the knife and holstering the pistol.

“Colonel O’Neill and Daniel Jackson are still alive,” he rumbled.

“What happened?,” Carter asked dully.

“After we became separated, Daniel Jackson was forced from the room at sword point. You saw Colonel O’Neill knocked down?”

She nodded.

“He was carried out by two others. They left their wounded and dead, so I believe him to still be very much alive.”

The wounded Xotalancas were being systematically dispatched by the two remaining Tecuhltli. Unlike before, neither Carter nor Teal’c moved to stop them. Warfare in this demonic stone city had its own protocols. As O’Neill had observed: different world, different rules. The enemy that survived today might be the one that killed you tomorrow.

A quiet footfall sounded behind them, and Techotl trotted into the hall. At the sight of the carnage, he stopped short. He appeared to be doing a quick survey of the fallen, for suddenly his face split into an enormous grin.

“Twelve!,” he exulted. “Twelve dead dogs of Xotalanc! What a slaying! Oh, what a feast we shall have to celebrate! To think that I should have been so close to such a fight, and still have missed it.”

He joined the other two, ghoulishly butchering the wounded.

“I’m starting to think the Colonel was right on the money,” Carter commented softly. “These guys are all batshit crazy.”

“There is something most unwholesome at work here,” Teal’c agreed. “They treat battle like sport.”

The three Tecuhltli were kneeling by their fallen foes, each in turn. Carter wondered if they had some sort of death ritual like the Catholic Last Rites. If so, it would have been the first sign of softness she had seen any of them display. She stepped a little closer to get a better look and immediately regretted it.

They weren’t comforting the dead or engaging in a death ritual or anything remotely soft.

They were cutting the right ear off of each Xotalancan corpse.

Teal’c noticed Carter suddenly go a lovely shade of light green and wondered if she was about to pass out. He stepped to her side to get a better look at the proceedings.

“Goddamned animals,” she breathed, so low he could barely hear it.

He looked at her and gave her the raised eyebrow.

“Your American plains indian tribes had a similar custom,” he pointed out.

“And probably for the same reason,” she agreed. “That doesn’t make it any less barbartic.”

“Do not judge them harshly until we have good reason for it,” he cautioned. “Were we in their circumstances, we might act similarly.”

She shot him a sharp look, then chastised herself. He was being sincere. He was also, she admitted to herself, quite right. Despite all her high-minded culture, with the right motivation, she would be alongside the rest, cutting ears off with gusto. Too much of mankind’s civilization was a veneer: a flimsy top layer that peeled off easily when things got nasty. The introspection didn’t really do her self-image that much good, but it was honest, and she’d always believed that honesty was the best policy.

Finished with their grisly task, the two strange Tecuhltli were eyeballing them uneasily when Techotl approached, wiping bloody hands on his loincloth. With a shudder, Carter realized that what she had taken for an abstract woven pattern on the scanty garment was actually a series of bloodstains.

“You must come with us, my friends,” he said urgently. “The Xotalancas may return at any time, and in greater numbers. Your thunder clubs are fearsome, but they have weapons more terrifying still.”

Carter smirked at the ‘thunder clubs’ reference, but the smirk quickly died as she recalled the Burning Skull. Yes, she admitted, it was likely did have more fearsome weapons.

"Quickly," he urged, growing more jittery. 

"Just a minute, "Carter answered, holding up a hand. "We have to talk about this first."

"There is no time," Techotl pleaded.

"Then make time," she snapped back, a little more sharply than she intended. She and Teal’c held a huddled conference. 

"What do you think?," she asked, giving the Tecuhltli a sidelong glance. Teal’c crossed his arms, cradling the staff blaster and imitating the look. 

"Techotl, at least, seems earnest in his concern for our safety, " he replied quietly. 

"I'm not worried about him,” she admitted, “but I don't like the idea of allying ourselves with anybody on so little information."

Carter nervously fiddled with her P90’s tether. 

"If we are to search for the others, we must be able to move about freely. We know very little of our surroundings; an ally would be helpful," he pointed out.

Carter nodded. 

"Yeah, that's pretty much how I had it figured, too," she said. "That doesn’t mean I have to like it. "

"Nor does it mean we shouldn't keep a close watch on them, friendly or not," he added softly. 

"I like the way you think, " she agreed, giving him a tight smile. 

"All right," she told Techotl. "Lead on."

“Follow,” the lanky man sighed in relief. “Go silently. Our enemies may be all around.”

Without further elaboration, he led them from the chamber, making a succession of quick turns through several different galleries before ascending a stair to the next level. He plunged through another doorway and hurried through chamber after chamber, each lighted by skylights or the green fire jewels. Carter’s sense of direction was quickly scrambled beyond hope, but Teal’c seemed to be keeping careful track of their heading. 

The other two Tecuhltli followed in their wake, making less noise than prowling cats. 

Techotl’s fear did not seem to lessen as they drew farther and farther away from the gore-soaked hall where fourteen men had died. He frequently paused, twisting his head around to listen for sounds of pursuit, and cast an intensely burning gaze into every doorway they passed.

At one of these pauses, Carter took advantage of the lull to ask a question that had been burning in her mind.

“Why don’t we get out of this building and take to the streets?,” she asked. “We could make better time that way.”

“There are no streets,” he answered gruffly. “No squares or open courts. The whole city is built like one great palace under one giant roof. The closest thing to a street is the Great Hall, which runs from the north gate to the south gate. The only doors opening to the outside world are the city gates at the end of the Hall, through which no living man has passed for fifty _kan_.”

“How long have you lived here?,” Teal’c asked.

“I was born in the castle of Tecuhltli thirty five _kan_ ago. I have never set foot outside the city. For the love of the gods, let us go silently! These halls may be full of lurking devils. Tolkemec shall tell you all when we reach Tecuhltli.”

In silence they glided on with green fire-stones blazing overhead and the flaming floors smouldering under their feet, and it seemed to Carter as if they fled through Hell, guided by a swarthy, lank-haired goblin.

Teal’c halted them as they were crossing an unusually large chamber. His hearing was even keener than that of the Tecuhltli, despite theirs being honed by a lifetime of warfare in these silent corridors. 

"You think more of your enemies may be ahead of us, lying in wait?," he asked in a low tone.

"They prowl through these rooms at all hours," whispered Techotl, "as do we. The halls between Tecuhltli and Xotalanc are a disputed area, controlled by no one. We call them the Halls of Silence. Why do you ask?"

"Because men are in the rooms ahead of us."

Again, a shaking took hold of Techotl and he clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering. 

"Maybe they're your kinsmen," Carter suggested. She had almost called them 'friends', but she was getting the impression that kinder sentiments like friendship might not exist here.

"We dare not risk it," he panted, motioning to his clansmen, and they followed as he scurried up a spiral staircase that appeared to be carved from ivory. He stopped next to an elaborate geometrical carving on the wall.

"This leads to an unlighted corridor, " he said, great beads of cold sweat starting out on his forehead. "They may be lurking here, too. It may all be a trick to draw us into it, but we must take the chance they have laid their ambush in the hall below."

He pressed an arabesqued triangle, and a section of the wall silently opened inward.

"Come swiftly now," he murmured. "If we become separated in the darkness, follow the corridor to its end."

"That won't be a problem," Carter grinned, toggling on the flashlight mounted to her P90. Techotl’s eyes went wide in amazement. 

"Truly, your thunder club is a wondrous weapon. Perhaps you _are_ the equal of Xotalanc's magic."

"Perhaps," Teal’c replied noncommittally, as they followed him into the gloom. 

As they were entering darkness, someone else was leaving darkness. 

O’Neill had no idea where he was, but it was dark, dank, and smelly. He was standing in a room that, if possible, was even larger than the great hall they’d used to enter the city. The gloom was cut by a watery grey light that was a welcome change from the nauseous green of the fire-stones.

He cast a quick glance around. Carter and Teal’c were off to his right and he frowned in confusion. Carter was carrying a long pole or spear that gleamed silver in the uncertain light. He didn’t recall his second in command having a fondness for spears, unless she had picked it up recently, like in the last two minutes or so.

Daniel was off to his left. There was another man with Jackson, leaning heavily across his shoulders. The stranger held a wad of gauzy white material to his side, vainly trying to staunch the flow of blood from a nasty looking gash across his ribs.

There was a reverberating tramping sound echoing through the air, like the footfalls of an army on the move. O’Neill suddenly regretted every decision he’d made since getting out of bed this morning. He was about to order a retreat when Teal’c suddenly grasped his arm.

“Wake up, Jack,” he said.

O’Neill blinked, puzzled. In all the time they’d known each other, Teal’c had never called him by his given name.

“Wake up, Jack,” he repeated, this time in Jackson’s voice, and shook O'Neill's arm. It gave him the willies, hearing Jackson’s voice coming out of Teal’c’s mouth.

“This is no time for a nap. Get your old ass up.”

O’Neill was about to remonstrate over the ‘old’ when his eyes snapped open.

The big dark room of his dreams gave way to a big bright room. He lay flat on his back on an uncomfortably cold stone bench. Jackson’s face hovered over him, relief and annoyance vying for control of his features.

“It’s about damn time,” he muttered under his breath.

“Where are we?,” O’Neill managed to ask through a painfully dry throat.

“I’m assuming this is Xotalanc,” Jackson waved a vague hand at their surroundings.

O’Neill was immediately conscious of a hammering sensation in his head. He tried to put his hands to his temples, but Jackson quickly intercepted them.

“Better not,” he advised. “You’ve got a lump the size of a goose egg on the side of your head.”

With a groan, O’Neill waved him back, and very gingerly traced his fingertips around, trying to gauge the extent of the injury.

“I don’t think you’ve got a skull fracture, but you’re definitely concussed,” Jackson added helpfully.

The lump was very tender, but Jackson appeared to be right in that there was no fracture. He vaguely recalled getting gang-tackled and bashing his head into the floor, so a knot on the noggin and a nasty headache was no surprise. 

“Carter and Teal’c?,” he rasped.

“Last I saw, they were giving the Xotalancas all the trouble they could handle. If they got captured, they didn’t get brought along with us.”

So. Possibly captured, possibly KIA, possibly with Techotl’s people, possibly running around as free agents. 

_Quite a hash you've made of this_ , he berated himself. He suddenly became aware of something missing.

“P-90’s gone,” he grated.

“Mine, too,” Jackson confirmed. “They took the rifles and knives, but left us our sidearms and radios. Must’ve not realized their importance.”

O’Neill ruefully examined the frayed end of the P-90’s tether and gave Jackson a questioning look.

“The buckles were a little too hard for them to figure out,” the archaeologist explained with a shrug.

“At least they were kind enough to leave my tac vest alone,” O’Neill commented, running questing hands through the pockets, taking a quick inventory. “At some point, you’re going to have to start wearing one again, Daniel,” he added.

O’Neill sat up. 

Big mistake.

The room started spinning, and before he could lay back down, his stomach lurched. He rolled over onto his side and vomited on the floor.

“Take that, you jackasses,” he mumbled. “Any time you take Jack O’Neill prisoner, you’ll regret it. Or at least the janitor will.”

Taking advantage of his awkward position, he dug around in his vest and found a couple of ibuprofen, washing them down with a lukewarm swig from his canteen. They probably wouldn't sit well on an empty stomach, but his aching head needed all the help it could get. He rolled onto his back and surveyed the ceiling. 

"This is different," he commented. "Not really what I was expecting."

The room, or rather alcove, they were in was white marble lit by more of the recessed skylights, providing a stark contrast to the bloody reds and noxious greens throughout the rest of the city. The workmanship, observable as it was, was jarringly juxtaposed with the primitiveness of their captors. 

"I'm guessing we're not free to go?," O'Neill ventured. 

"We have a guard," Jackson confirmed. "Two, in fact."

"So what happened? ," O'Neill asked, tenderly trying to massage the lump on his head. It was a bad idea, and he quickly stopped. 

"I got shanghaied at knife point, and you got dragged off. You may be happy to know that it took three of them to manhandle you."

Even unconscious, O’Neill hadn’t been a model prisoner.

"They dumped us off here, and from what I gather, we're waiting for the arrival of their king, or chief, or whoever is in charge."

"That's swell," O'Neill grumbled. 

Jackson couldn’t be sure if he was talking about their situation or his head.

"Have you tried to get Carter or Teal’c on the radio?," O'Neill asked. Jackson shook his head. 

"The walls are probably too thick," he replied. "Besides, if they're in a sticky spot like we are, having the radio squawking won't help. "

"You've learned well, Grasshopper," O'Neill nodded in approval, then wished he hadn’t as his head let him know what an awful idea that was with another dull throb. 

"I think I'm starting to get a better grasp on these people," Jackson commented. 

"I'm not much for deep thinking at the moment," O'Neill said, finally able to cradle his head in his hands, "but please, expound, professor. "

Jackson wasn't sure if he was being sarcastic or not, but took the chance to forge ahead.

"They’re two clans, definitely Mesoamerican in origin, " he said. "Maybe Aztec, maybe Zapotec, though the Zapotecs are usually considered to be a more peaceful people."

"Everybody gets nasty if you squeeze them hard enough, " O'Neill interrupted. 

"In any case," Jackson continued, ignoring him, "they're definitely warlike now."

"No kidding, " O'Neill deadpanned. 

"The point being that Mesoamerican cultures were pretty bloodthirsty by modern standards. Human sacrifice was kinda the rule, rather than the exception."

"So this could turn ugly real fast?," O'Neill probed. Jackson nodded.

"I’d say it was plenty ugly already, but yeah, they’re probably going to be really touchy about outsiders. It would be best to assume that whatever they say is meant literally, rather than figuratively. "

“Oh, I always take threats seriously,” O’Neill replied breezily. “Might be a good idea for you to let _them_ know that.”

“In a broader sense,” Jackson went on, undeterred, “we’re going to have to be even more careful than usual under these circumstances, because if there are any misunderstandings or ill-will, the chances of us being sent home peacefully is practically nil.”

"First priority is Carter and Teal’c," O'Neill groaned. "Second is getting out of here in one piece. If they wanna keep killing each other wholesale after we're gone, that's their business. "

"I think that for once, I'm in wholehearted agreement with you," Jackson said.

"Really? ," O'Neill asked, shocked. "I expected you to want to broker a peace treaty or some such. I mean, this Hatfield and McCoy thing is right up your alley."

"The Hatfields and McCoys were otherwise sane people caught up in a blood feud. I don't think these people are entirely sane."

“What was your first clue?,” O’Neill snarked.

“I should have left your old ass unconscious,” Jackson rebutted.

“Excellent,” O’Neill said in his best imitation of Mr. Burns. “Where’s Smithers with his baseball bat when I need him?”

Any further ruminations on the whereabouts of bat-wielding assistants was cut short by the appearance of two Xotalancas at the doorway. Swords in hand, they eyed Jackson and O’Neill evilly, then one jerked his head in the direction of the doorway, indicating they were to exit.

“Welcome wagon gets no points for hospitality,” O’Neill observed.

“Bet they make up for it with a stunning buffet,” Jackson replied, helping O’Neill to his feet. The older man staggered slightly before recovering his equilibrium.

“Oh, this is gonna suck so hard,” he muttered under his breath as his head started doing the weird spinning thing again. “Just so you know, Daniel, there’s a good chance I may shoot this chief on sight.”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” the younger man shot back. “Does the name ‘General Custer’ mean anything to you?”

“I’m definitely concussed,” O’Neill confirmed. “That actually made sense.”

With O’Neill leaning heavily on Jackson, they staggered out of the alcove and followed their erstwhile guards down a broad corridor that ended in a massive bronze gate. One of their escorts used the pommel of his sword to hammer twice on the right valve, and it obediently swung open. They were unceremoniously shoved into a large room, spaciously constructed of a light, creamy marble in a very open, airy style. 

There were clusters of cushion-strewn stone benches arranged on their left and right to create several little conversation nooks, while leaving a broad path or aisle down the middle of the room. Heavy fabric tapestries covered the frieze-carven walls. In places, the delicate geometric designs of the tapestries had been crudely painted over with the recurring white skull-and-bones motif. The effect was as jarring as someone using a magic marker to draw a mustache on the _Mona Lisa_. Jackson and O’Neill were roughly manhandled down the aisle. 

The room was peopled with the largest gathering they had encountered yet; by O’Neill’s count thirty-five souls. Each wore the same garb, had the same lanky, ghoulish look as everyone they had seen thus far. There were a handful of females scattered throughout the crowd, but the vast majority were males. The women were dressed the same as their male counterparts, and were only slightly less bony.

At the far end of the room was a low dais topped by two ivory chairs. Sunshine slanted through the skylights and lit up the dais like a spotlight, illuminating that end of the room with a soft, buttery glow. The wall behind the chairs was devoid of tapestry, instead covered with an intricately carved symbol that was nearly ten feet across. As soon as Jackson saw it, he stopped in his tracks.

“Oh, shit,” he said, barely loud enough to be heard. His guard, irritated at the sudden halt, shoved him forward. 

“You’re not filling me with confidence,” O’Neill grumbled.

“The sigil, behind the throne,” Jackson hissed. “You recognize it?”

O’Neill squinted for a moment, then shook his head.

“Nope.”

“You should; you’ve seen it before.”

“Well, I don’t, so quit dancing around the subject,” O’Neill bit back sharply. Jackson had a natural flair for the dramatic that got on his nerves sometimes. Like now.

“That’s the sign of Nirrti.”

“Oh, shit,” O’Neill agreed, then brightened. “Hey, that means I was right after all. The Goa’uld _are_ at the bottom of this. I shoulda bet money on that.”

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Jackson said. “They like their slaves nice and orderly. The System Lords wouldn't have a setup like this unless they were being cruel for cruelty’s sake. They would think this kind of thing was beneath them.”

“Nirrti’s been dead for a couple of years now,” O’Neill replied. “Maybe these yahoos got left on their own and went all _Lord of the Flies_ after that.”

"Maybe," Jackson conceded, but was clearly not convinced. 

There had been a low hum of background conversation that died an inglorious death as they were herded down the aisle. Between whispered snippets of discussion, the Xotalancas watched them with lustful, hungry eyes.

"And what would the ruler of such an assemblage be called?," O'Neill asked sarcastically, watching the unkempt crowd with a level stare.

"Oh, Emperor, at the very least," Jackson replied as they were brought up to the foot of the still-empty dais.

"Kneel," one of the escorts growled, giving Jackson a rough shove in the direction of the floor. 

"Thank you, but no," O'Neill snarked. "I've got a bit of a cramp in my leg…"

The impatient guard didn’t wait to hear the rest, instead booting O’Neill across the hamstrings, precipitating him to the marble floor. He managed to break the fall with his hands, averting a face-plant, but winding up in a posture uncomfortably suggestive of supplication. He was getting fed up with the condescending treatment and was about to bounce back up to his feet and cuss a strip off of the offender when his attention was caught by the sound of soft steps coming from behind the dais.

He heard the sudden hiss of indrawn breath from Jackson and glanced up. A man had appeared on the platform, and his appearance would have garnered attention regardless of circumstances. 

He was a giant, possibly the tallest man O’Neill had ever seen in person, and in contrast with everyone else they had encountered here, was built like a Hercules. Ridges and cords of muscle stood out on arms and legs, and the immense curve of his chest swept down to a lean waist. An enormous black beard, oiled and curled, cascaded almost to his navel. He was clothed in a gilt - worked loincloth held up by a jewel encrusted cummerbund. It was impossible to conceive an image of barbaric opulence superior to the one they gazed upon.

He watched them with dark eyes that flashed with cynical cruelty.

"Bow before Xosala, lord of Xotalanc, " he rumbled in a deep voice, like the bellowing of a distant bull.

"That would be you?," O'Neill ventured, seeking to break the ice.

"It has been long since we had guests in the Hall of the Serpent," he continued in a mocking tone, ignoring the interruption. "You have killed my warriors and were heard to pledge friendship to the dogs of Tecuhltli. At the rising of the moons, we shall feast, and then I shall take great pleasure in stripping the flesh from your bones."

"Like hell you will," O'Neill shot back, temper flaring. Despite Jackson’s warning, he was reaching for his Beretta with the intention of blasting Xosala's head into pudding when Jackson unexpectedly began chanting softly in a language O’Neill didn’t understand. 

Shrugging off their captors, the younger man surged to his feet, chanting louder and louder. Reaching a crescendo, he jabbed his thumb directly at Xosala.

"I CURSE YOU!," he shouted. O’Neill blinked in surprise. This was possibly the most unexpected turn of events yet. "I curse you by the Old Serpent and the Little Snake, “ Jackson belted out, “by the Eagle and the Leopard. Those who spill our blood must repay it back a thousand times. Their people shall wither away and become wraiths, haunters of the shadows. "

There was a sudden gabble of nervous conversation around the room. O’Neill didn't comprehend a tenth of what Jackson had said, but the natives sure had.

“That was certainly magical,” he muttered under his breath. 

“Voodoo rum curse,” Jackson whispered. “What confuses one group of primitives should confuse the next.”

Xosala's merciless smile grew wider; if he was at all concerned, he didn’t show it. 

"If you be sorcerer enough to levy such a curse, we shall not trifle with you. Tomorrow morning, you shall be bound and cast from the city wall. The dragons will devour your bones, and if curse there be, it shall fall on them ."

“Well that’s just fine,” O’Neill grated in the most sarcastic tone he could manage while struggling to his feet. The spinning in his head had abated somewhat, but he was still a little wobbly on his feet.

“I’ve already killed one dragon today, so what’s a second?”

O’Neill’s voice was dripping with scorn. 

“Dragons are immortal. They cannot be killed, except by each other,” Xosala rebutted harshly.

“Bullshit,” O’Neill observed. “They’re no more immortal than any other chunk of beef.” 

Xosala’s eyes narrowed to slits.

“And how did you do this?,” he asked. 

“How indeed?,” Jackson echoed quietly so only O’Neill could hear him. “He’s got you there.”

“Shut up, Daniel,” O’Neill grumbled back. He straightened and glared back at Xosala.

“I called down, _ahhh_ , thunder from heaven and smote it,” he answered imperiously, squaring his shoulders and doing his best to look imposing.

“ _You_ ,” Xosala repeated, as though addressing a bug, “called down thunder from heaven and killed a dragon.”

“Yes,” O’Neill confirmed, “this is what I just said.”

“So, you are both great sorcerers,” Xosala said. Skepticism didn’t even begin to describe his attitude. “One casting curses, and one slaying dragons.”

He hooked his thumbs behind his jewelled cummerbund, and stood up straight, towering over them, every fiber and striation of his fabulous musculature highlighted by the light streaming through the skylights. 

“Very well,” he said finally. “I wish to see this thunder from heaven.” He pointed at one of their escorts. “Strike this one down.”

The man he indicated looked around helplessly, eyes bulging in fear.

“Well, you’ve really stepped in it now,” Jackson observed quietly.

“Shut up, Daniel,” O’Neill barked back, feeling like he was having to repeat himself a lot today. He cleared his throat.

“I don’t kill to make a point, you royal dickweed.”

Xosala rumbled with cold, mirthless laughter. 

"So, you are not very powerful after all," he mused.

"Have you not heard that it is dangerous to test the will of the gods?," Jackson asked in as dangerous a tone as he could muster. 

"Oh, you are gods now?," Xosala asked, feigning surprise. 

"You are reading words which are not written," Jackson rebuked sharply. "Have a care your tongue doesn't get the rest of you in trouble. "

"Truly, thy mouth writeth checks thy body can't cash," O'Neill interjected, trying his best to sound wise.

Xosala was not impressed, but a nervous buzz ran around the room. The rest of the Xotalancas were not as blase` about implied divine threats as their leader.

"You refuse to call down this thunder from heaven?," he asked contemptuously.

"Oh, all right," O'Neill agreed in exasperation. "Just, umm, averteth thine eyes, or the thunder of heaven may blast the reason from your minds."

"Assuming there is any," Jackson added under his breath.

"How do we know you will not play us a trick?," Xosala inquired. 

"It's _thunder from heaven_ , you dolt," O'Neill answered. "Do you really think you'll be able to miss it?"

"Very well."

Xosala was clearly not convinced, but cast down his gaze anyway, as did his followers. 

O’Neill glanced around, rapidly searching for something he quickly found: an empty conversation nook, far to one side of the room. He casually ambled in that direction, hand wandering up to his tac vest. He needed lots of room for this to work.

"This better be really good," Jackson hissed. "I don't think they'll fall for any parlor tricks here."

O'Neill gave him a tight grin.

"Keep an eye on beard-boy," he muttered, giving Xosala a sidelong glance. "Make sure he keeps his head down."

"Roger that," Jackson acknowledged, then drifted back toward the crowd where he had a better vantage point. 

"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," O'Neill intoned loudly in a solemn singsong chant, pulling a fragmentation grenade out of a vest pocket. "Thunder come down from the sky is really quite atrocious." 

He was close enough for his purposes now. He took a quick look around. Everyone seemed to be behaving themselves, dutifully staring at the floor.

"Bibbity"

He pulled the pin.

"Boppity"

He let the spoon fly off. The hammer slapped into the ignition cap, sending a tiny tendril of smoke into the air as the fuse started burning. 

"BOO!"

With this last, he tossed the grenade into the nook and took a half dozen quick steps back. He had cut things a little close with his theatrics. The grenade had scarcely clattered to the floor before exploding in a shower of dust and marble fragments. 

He couldn’t have hoped for better results. At the thunderous _crack_ of the explosion, the room's occupants made a rapid migration to the floor and cowered in terror as stone chips rained down upon them.

"Well," he said conversationally, rubbing his hands together as he turned back to the awestruck crowd, "now that that's out of the way, what's next?"

When no further pyrotechnics happened, the terrified Xotalancas stood up by ones and twos, casting nervous glances between O'Neill and Jackson on the one hand and Xosala on the other. O’Neill tensed, one hand casually resting on the butt of his sidearm. If he had misread the Xotalancan leader, things could get hairy pretty quick.

"So you _do_ possess great power," Xosala admitted slowly in a grudging tone. Neither O'Neill or Jackson liked the crafty, calculating look that flashed across his face.

"Make our guests welcome, " he growled. "Doubtless they are weary after journeying so far. When they have refreshed themselves, we shall feast, and then perhaps speak more of the ways of the gods."

It was clearly a dismissal, and without further discourse, he left the dais, exiting through an unseen doorway concealed in the wall below the carved sigil.

"Holy Turn Of Events, Batman," O'Neill deadpanned. "I guess they're not going to eat us after all."

"We may have opened an even bigger can of worms," Jackson pointed out, "especially if they think we're gods or messengers of the gods. I didn't like the look he had on his face."

"Well, that beats me," O'Neill snarked. "I didn't like much of anything about him. Start thinking about ways to persuade them that we're not gods."

"The lump on your head should have already done that," the younger man bit back, "but I'll get right on it. I just hope Teal’c and Sam got a warmer reception than we did."

Carter and Teal’c followed close behind Techotl and his two clansmen as he led them down the darkened corridor. The actinic white of their flashlights limned the outline of wall carvings in stark relief, casting surreal shadows in the gloom. Unlike the other halls of Xuchotl, this secret passageway was thick with cobwebs and the accumulated dust and debris of ages. They moved silently, five furtive figures, with only gritty footprints to mark their passing.

Suddenly, they were galvanized by a quiet sound behind them. Carter's flesh crawled as she recognized it as the stealthy opening of a door. Someone had come into the hallway where they had just passed. Even as the thought came, she slipped on the floor’s thick layer of dust. Her P90 made an appalling clatter in the silence, scraping against the wall as she righted herself. 

"Run!," yelped Techotl, a note of hysteria in his voice, and was away down the corridor, his companions close behind. Carter and Teal’c raced after their guide. They sped down the hallway while the sharp patter of feet grew closer and closer at their rear. Their flashlights painted the walls with random flashes of light, like the strobing of an insane disco ball.

Suddenly, Techotl panted, "Here is the stair. Quick, oh quick, follow me!"

They rushed through, almost tripping each other in their haste. The staircase was wide enough for two men to pass abreast, but it seemed like all five of them managed to cram in at one time. Techotl’s hand snaked out of the darkness and grabbed Carter's wrist as she stumbled halfway up the stairs. Teal’c gave her a healthy push, then turned to meet their pursuers, his instincts telling him their foes were hard at their backs.

Something came writhing up the stairs, something cloaked in shadow that slithered and rustled and brought an unholy chill to the air. Not waiting to see what it was, he energized his staff and blasted the roof. With an agonized groan of tortured stone, the ceiling shifted, then collapsed, filling the lower section of the staircase. The darkness beneath him was filled with a frightful lashing and thrashing, and a man cried out in mortal agony.

Without wasting another moment, he raced up the winding staircase and through the door that stood open at its head. Carter and Techotl were already through, and Techotl slammed the door shut and shot a bolt across it, the first they had seen since entering the outside gate.

They ran across the well-lighted chamber into which they had come, and as they passed the farther door, Teal’c glanced back and saw the door groaning and straining under heavy pressure violently applied from the other side.

Though Techotl did not diminish either his speed or caution, he seemed much more confident now. He had the attitude of a man who has come into familiar territory, within call of his friends. Teal’c shattered his newfound confidence with a single question.

“What was that thing I fought on the stair?”

“The men of Xotalanc,” Techotl answered without looking back. “I told you the halls were full of them.”

“That wasn’t a man,” grunted the hulking Jaffa. “It was something that crawled on the ground, and it was cold as ice to the touch. When the ceiling collapsed, it fell back on the men following us, and must have killed one of them in its death throes.”

Techotl’s head jerked back, his face ashy again. Convulsively, he quickened his pace.

“It was the Crawler!,” he moaned. “A monster _they_ have brought out of the catacombs to aid them. What it is, we do not know, but we have found our people hideously slain by it. If it is on our track, it will follow us to the very doors of Tecuhltli. Hasten! Hasten!”

They sprinted through a series of green-lit chambers, traversed a broad hall and halted before a giant bronze door. The two silent Tecuhltli spread out to either side, well back from the portal, eyes alert and blades ready for action.

Techotl hammered on the door with clenched fist and then turned sideways, so he could watch back along the hall.

“Men have been done to death before this very door, when they thought they were safe,” he said.

“Why don’t they open the door?,” Carter asked.

“They are looking at us through the Eye,” Techotl explained. “They are puzzled at the sight of you. He shouted to the unseen door-wardens.

“Open the door, Xecelan! I have returned with friends from the world beyond the gates!”

“Who is ‘I’?,” inquired a muffled surly voice from the other side.

“I am Techotl, you misbegotten son of sad parents! You know me. Open!”

“You could be a demon in disguise,” the voice said accusingly.

“Ass! Poltroon! Open!,” Techolt shouted, striking the door with an open palm, confidence waning.

“They will open,” he assured them after several seconds of total silence. Carter and Teal’c found themselves wondering if the assurance was for their benefit or his. He was on the verge of panic.

“They must hurry,” Teal’c rumbled. “I hear something crawling along the floor beyond this hall.”

Techotl went ashy again, and frantically attacked the door with his fists.

“Open you fools, open!,” he screamed. “The Crawler is at our heels!”

Even as he beat and shouted, the great bronze door swung noiselessly back, revealing a heavy chain barrier across the doorway, over which spear-heads bristled and fierce faces regarded them intently for a moment. Then the chain was dropped and Techotl grasped the arms of his newfound friends in a nervous frenzy and practically dragged them across the threshold. All five were inside in a heartbeat.

A glance over his shoulder just as the door was closing showed Teal’c the long dim vista of the great hall, and framed in the hazy gloom at the far end was a vague ophidian shape that writhed slowly and painfully into view. He only had a moment’s glimpse, then the closing door shut off his view.

The panting group spent a moment catching their breath, while the door guards clustered around them, watching the newcomers with evident curiosity. The room they were in was a round guardroom built of light, creamy marble, a welcome change from the depressingly omnipresent reds and greens. 

Techotl straightened with what they guessed passed for a smile among his people.

“Welcome, my friends, to the castle of Tecuhltli,” he announced proudly. “Here you are safe, if any in Xuchotl can be said to be truly safe.”


	5. Ruminations on the Abyss

Inside the round chamber, heavy bolts were drawn across the gate, and with the chain locked in place, the bronze portal was fit to withstand a battering ram. 

Four men stood guard, of the same dusky-hued, lank-haired pattern as Techotl, with spears in their hands and swords at their hips. In the wall near the door was a complicated arrangement of mirrors permitting them to see the outer hall, which Carter guessed was the ‘Eye’ Techotl had mentioned. The four guardsmen stared at the newcomers in unabashed curiosity, but asked no questions, nor did Techotl make any pronouncement. 

“Come!,” he urged his newfound friends, but Teal’c glanced at the door.

“What of those who followed us?,” he growled. “Will they not attempt to storm the door?”

Techotl shook his head.

“They know they cannot break through the Door of the Eagle. They will flee back to Xotalanc with their crawling fiend. Come now!”

They were escorted down a brightly lit hall, with Techotl and his two companions acting as an honor guard. Once past the great bronze gate, a wondrous change occurred in their demeanor. No longer furtive, slinking savages, they straightened and walked with a brash swagger, trading verbal jabs and chaffering with those they came across. Several of the Tecuhltli raced ahead, spreading tidings of their coming, Carter supposed.

“Where are we going?,” she asked.

“Tolkemec and Akna await us in the Hall of Justice,” came Techotl’s somewhat enigmatic reply.

“Along with the rest of the SuperFriends, I bet,” Carter muttered under her breath.

“And they are...?,” Teal’c prompted.

Techotl looked uneasy over such a simple question.

“Tolkemec is the oldest and wisest of us. He was once a great war-leader, though he now prefers to let the younger men lead, while he thinks.”

“And the other? Akna?,” Carter probed.

Techotl shuddered. 

“She is Akna. Speak of it no more,” he gulped.

Carter and Teal’c shared a questioning glance, then Carter made a face and shrugged. It seemed pointless to pursue the matter further. Doubtless, they would find out for themselves in a minute or two.

Neither had any way of knowing that the halls and corridors they were traversing were the mirror image of halls that Jackson and O’Neill were being ushered through at almost the same moment on the other end of the city.

Passing another massive bronze gate, they entered a cavernous room. On the far side of the chamber were two elaborately carved ivory chairs atop a low platform made of the same buttery marble as the rest of the room. On either side of the platform was a knee-high stone block, cut from blood-red chalcedony, surmounted by a long spike. 

Stone benches and low couches carved from ebony and jade were scattered, apparently at random, throughout the chamber. There might have been forty people present, some engaged in repairing tools or weapons, some preparing food, and some simply lounging about on piles of silken cushions, talking. The sun slanted through the skylights at a sharper angle and began to take on a ruddy hue. The day was drawing to a close.

Moving beyond the daylight’s soft orange glare, Carter could see a man and a woman standing in front of the dais, apparently waiting on them. The man appeared to be a carbon copy of every other male they had seen thus far, albeit that he might have been a little taller, and had streaks of gray in his black hair. His lean form was clad in an iridescent purple robe that shimmered and gleamed in the dying light. The woman…

Carter’s breath stuck in her throat. 

Her heart stopped.

She felt like she’d been punched in the gut.

Reality seemed to bend, twist, and contract all at once. She felt Teal’c stiffen at her side, and knew that he was seeing what she was seeing, too. That was reassuring in that, if she was losing her mind, then he was as well. Misery may or may not love company, but crazy always does.

Crazy may seem like a bit of a stretch, but when the mind is confronted with a blatant impossibility, the responses are limited, usually either constituting outright rejection or breaking. The woman’s presence was such an impossibility. The face was one neither would forget so long as they lived, but they had seen her die, after all.

“Nirrti,” Teal’c rumbled, voice boiling over with ferocious hatred. It seemed like the harder he worked to stamp the Goa’uld out, the more they refused to die. He brought his staff to bear, opening the aperture and energizing the power cell. A twitch of his thumb would send her back to that Hell she had consigned so many others to.

“Easy,” Carter soothed, laying a gentle hand on his forearm. It hadn’t taken a great feat of genius to follow his thought process or guess his intentions. The primed staff blaster was kind of a dead giveaway. “Let’s see how she’s going to play this before we start shooting. I’d guess these people are Goa’uld slaves, just like yours. No sense killing them unnecessarily.”

He scowled, then nodded and powered the blaster down.

“Perhaps you are right,” he allowed. “But I will not be a prisoner, nor tortured again. Death will claim me first.”

Carter sighed in partial relief, while still cringing at the thought that she was, once again, in the grip of the hated System Lords. The last time she had been a ‘guest’ of Nirrti, she had narrowly avoided death by scrambled DNA. Who knew what this time would bring?

“Deal; I just hope I don’t regret this later,” she replied quietly.

Despite their surprise, they hadn’t stopped walking, just slowed their pace. Techotl began making impatient-looking hurrying-along motions; apparently the thought of keeping his rulers waiting was abhorrent. It was with a solid mixture of dread and anticipation that they walked to the foot of the dais.

Tolkemec had been watching them approach with intense curiosity and the first glimmerings of deep intelligence they had come across thus far. Far from simply evaluating them as friend or foe, his eyes swept back and forth across the pair, evaluating their clothing and other gear, noting its workmanship; not just that it was a strange design, but it was far beyond the Tecuhltli’s ability to manufacture. Noting their weapons were constructed of materials unknown to him. Noting the power dynamic between the two, that the imposing, muscular warrior gave respect and deference to the considerably smaller female, indicating that she was in charge. Noting that, even though they were in the hands of strangers, neither seemed particularly frightened. These two were an odd pair, and as he took his seat on the dais, he couldn’t help but feel that for better or worse, the fate of the Tecuhltli had been irretrievably altered the moment they passed through their gates.

Akna had watched, eyes glued to Teal’c as they approached, fascinated at his appearance. His graceful, easy stride was not so different from the Tecuhltli, but where they were thin and lanky, he was broad and powerful. Their musculature was knots of iron and strands of steel cable, while his was full and rounded with a sweep and symmetry that was pleasing to the eye. 

As they came within a stone’s throw of the dais, her eyes slipped to Carter and she froze. Her hand involuntarily went to her throat as though she felt an invisible wisp of silk around it, and Akna was struck with a strange new sensation she’d never felt before: fear. From a distance, Carter’s short hair had fooled her into believing both of the strangers were males, as she had no reason to suspect they wouldn’t be.

A woman had come among them, a strange foreign woman so different in her appearance that the contrast between her and the Tecuhltli was as night and day. Akna had been unique in this aspect; she alone among the inhabitants of Xuchotl had light skin and brown hair, but Carter’s countenance was more unique still. From her seat on the dais, she stared at the blond woman, an odd lustful gleam in her eyes. 

For their part, the strangers were doing their best to stare at Tolkemec, but it was clear their attention was centered on Akna. Thus far her eyes hadn’t started glowing, nor had she started issuing commands, so things were going better than they’d hoped. For a long moment, no one spoke.

“Strangers from afar,” Tolkemec finally said in a pleasant, even voice, “my people tell me you have aided warriors of Tecuhltli and slain the treacherous dogs of Xotalanc. For this I thank you.”

Carter was about to reply in bland pleasantries when Techotl interrupted.

“But there is more, O Tolkemec! Much more!”

Attention shifted to him as he quivered in suppressed excitement.

“Our raiding party was ambushed in the Merchants Quarter and broke into smaller groups. We were harried from hall to hall by the Xotalancan dogs. I thought I had slipped away from them when I came upon Xatmec in the Hall of Science with his throat cut. There I faced the Burning Skull! And there I would have died by the Burning Skull if not for them.” He pointed a trembling finger at Carter. “She slew the Burning Skull with her wonderful Thunder Club! And yet when he fell, the skull rolled away and it was but a dog of Xotalanc painted to look like Death!”

Hateful murmurs ran around the room, and more than one of the Techultli hawked and spat at the name of Xotalanc.

“But then,” Techotl went on, gesturing at Teal’c and Carter, “they fought at our side, and Oh! what a slaying it was!” He took a small pouch from his belt. “Twelve!,” he exulted. “Twelve dead dogs of Xotalanc!” He opened the pouch, and pulled out the ears they had cut off of the fallen Xotalancas. “See? Twelve lives to avenge the fallen Tecuhltli!”

He stepped to the side of the dais to one of the blocks of chalcedony, and one by one, impaled the ears on the spikes they had seen earlier. Carter shivered with revulsion.

At the mention of the Burning Skull, Tolkemec had bounded out of his seat, eyes wide with rage. At the news the Burning Skull had fallen, an excited buzz of conversation ran around the room, and Tolkemec’s face relaxed into a beatific smile he turned on the newcomers.

“You are doubly welcome here. Have you been sent by the gods to aid us?” His eyes narrowed to slits and he pinned Carter with a stare. “Are you not the Goddess herself, in human form, come down to help your people as was foretold? And your companion; surely he is one of the Lawgivers of old, whose descriptions have come down to us in myth and legend?”

Her face flushed hot pink to the roots of her hair, and she felt Teal’c twitch at her side. While it was flattering to be mistaken for a goddess, they were treading a very dangerous path, one that experience had taught them must be avoided at all costs.

“No, O Tolkemec, I am no goddess, nor is he a Lawgiver. We are only explorers; travelers from far away. We came here through the stargate that lies beyond the valley.”

Carter tried to stay as generic and blandly respectful as possible. Telling him they had come from another world or from a faraway star would pretty much sound like admitting they _had_ come from the gods.

“I know not what this ‘stargate’ is,” he said.

“It has many names,” she replied. “Stargate, _Chappa’ai_ , Circle of Standing Water, _Astria Porta_ ,” she bit her lip before she could say ‘Place of the Gods’, which, while true, would _not_ be helpful.

“The words you say are strange to me, though I am accounted wise among my people,” he said after a moment. “It matters not. It is enough you are here and you have aided us against our enemies.”

“Know, O Tolkemec,” Teal’c rumbled, “that we aided your people against a mutual enemy, not out of love for you. Our concern at this point is finding our missing comrades.”

Tolkemec cast a sharp glance at Techotl.

“This is true?,” he asked.

Techotl nodded.

“Yes. They were four, but two were carried away by the Xotalancas, doubtless to torture and death.”

“As soon as we find them, we are leaving,” Carter stated flatly, wanting no vagueness about the situation.

“Finding them, if they live, will not be so easy,” Tolkemec said. “Leaving will be impossible.”

Carter bristled at the insinuation, and Teal’c shifted his staff meaningfully.

“Nay, my friends,” Tolkemec held his hands up placatingly. “Not by any device would we keep you here against your will, but plain, valley and the forest beyond are full of dragons. How you came here unscathed I know not, but attempting to return would be madness. Fifty _kan_ ago, a thousand of our mightiest warriors grew weary of Xuchotl, and attempted to cross the valley and go out into the world beyond. All went well until they entered the forest. Then the dragons fell upon them, and slew them all. Those horrid dogs of Xotalanc still bind captives and cast them from the city wall for the dragons to devour. You dare not leave.”

“One of your dragons attacked us in the forest beyond the valley,” Carter said coldly. “And yet we stand here unscathed, while it is food for vultures. I think we dare more than you imagine.”

A collective gasp ran around the room. Tolkemec looked astonished, while Akna, who had been silent throughout the whole exchange, recoiled in horror.

“It cannot be,” she whispered in mortal terror. “The Goddess raised up the dragons. If you have slain one, then surely she will be wroth with us.”

Carter and Teal’c eyed Akna uncertainly. Her silence had been unnerving, and now her behavior was most un-Goa’uld-like, leading them to believe that something extra-weird was going on here. Just in case two displaced ancient Central American clans locked in a blood feud over a castle-city constructed by a vanished alien race on the far side of the galaxy wasn’t quite weird enough. They shared a quick glance of confusion.

“It was trying to eat us,” Carter rebutted, frowning. “All’s fair in love, war, and survival .”

Akna’s look of fear gave way to confusion. Apparently the Tecuhtli had no such proverbs, though their philosophy behind warfare was just that.

“Let the matter lie for the moment,” Tolkemec said, regaining his composure. “Doubtless we have much to discuss, but this is not the time or place. You are weary from your travels. Rest a little, refresh yourselves, then we shall feast. We have much to celebrate, both in the coming of new friends as well as twelve dead Xotalancas!”

This last was spoken in ecstatic tones reminiscent of a boxing - ring announcer.

He gestured to Techotl, who respectfully ushered them out of the room. Looking back, Teal’c saw that Akna’s gaze was still locked on Carter as though spellbound.

“That went better than I expected,” Carter confessed as they passed the bronze gate.

“Nirrti seemed to not recognize us,” Teal’c commented. ”Hardly credible given our last meeting. Unless she is playing a devious game, it would have been to her advantage to denounce us on the spot.”

“What’s the possibility she’s trapped here?,” Carter asked quietly, “either literally or figuratively.”

“Unlikely,” Teal’c replied. “She appeared to be a person held in some esteem, possibly a little fear. Recall Techotl’s reaction when you asked about her: he avoided answering, and gave the impression of someone who dreaded the topic.”

“True,” Carter admitted, thinking furiously as they followed Techotl through a series of twisting corridors. “But how is she still alive? We saw her die; she had neither sarcophagus nor Jaffa to put her in it. And how did she get here?”

“You sum up the difficulties succinctly,” Teal’c agreed, “but we find ourselves no closer to any answers.”

“I want to have a quiet chat with Techotl before this feast; there’s something we’re missing here, and I get the feeling it's very simple, but also very important.”

This part of the city appeared not to have been laid out as housing by the original builders; the individual rooms were constructed on the same cavernous scale as the rest of Xuchotl. The lighter tones of marble made everything less gloomy than the main halls of the city, and Carter could almost imagine this place being pleasant under other circumstances. Techotl led them to a room that was a small alcove off of a cathedral-like gallery the Tecuhltli used for sleeping quarters. The tribe apparently favored a communal domestic arrangement. 

‘Small’ was a relative term here: the alcove was easily the same size as the SGC briefing room. There was no sign of a bed or couch, but there were a number of the now-familiar carved benches arranged throughout the rectangular room. A multitude of sizable pillowlike cushions were scattered throughout, some on the benches, and some arranged into irregular mounds like a crazy alien imitation of an Eastern divan. Two other Tecuhltli were leaving as they entered, having apparently just deposited a carved alabaster basin, a large urn of water, and a smaller ewer on the largest of the benches.

“Rest, my friends,” Techotl said, indicating one of the pillow piles. “There is water to refresh yourselves and wine to quench your thirst. The feast will not begin until the rising of the moon.”

Carter untabbed her P-90 and unclipped her ruck, dropping it beside the nearest bench. Teal’c followed suit, but held onto his staff.

“Please,” Carter said to Techotl, gesturing to a bench, “have a seat. I’d like to ask you about a couple of things.”

Techotl seemed uneasy and surreptitiously edged closer to the exit. Teal’c stood in the doorway, staff cocked at a rakish angle, and took a deep breath, expanding his already massive chest even further. The intimation was clear: attempting to get around him would be a foolhardy idea. The Tecuhltli wilted.

“Tolkemec will answer your questions,” he protested halfheartedly.

Carter moved closer to him and did her best to look conciliatory.

“Techotl, you’re the closest thing we have to a friend here,” she said gently. “We need answers about this place, because maybe not everyone here will be willing to see us come and go in peace.”

“You are under the protection of Tolkemec,” he said, horrified at the thought. “No one would dare harm you.”

“What about Akna?,” Carter asked.

Techotl shuddered, and would not meet her gaze.

“Who is she?,” Teal’c probed. “Whence did she come? She is not of your people, that much is clear.”

Techotl stared at the floor, as though trying to morph through it to evade their questions.

“Very well,” he sighed, deflating. “I will tell you, though I wish you would hear it from others’ lips. Any of the Tecuhltli could tell you, for it is no secret; we just don’t like to speak of it.”

Carter snagged a cushion and sat on a bench. Teal’c relaxed a little, but stayed at the doorway, both to act as a sentry in case someone else approached, and to prevent Techotl from bolting if he changed his mind.

“Our forefathers,” Techotl began, “came from far away, from so far that the very stars in the sky were different, if the legends of my people can be believed. They dwelt in a stone city surrounded by a great lake. The land all around was peopled by tribes who hungered for their blood, to make sacrifice of them before their heathen gods.”

Carter had to suppress a grin at that. No matter who was telling the tale, it was always the _other_ side’s gods who were ‘heathen’. The Tecuhltli may have been throat-slitters, but at least in their own minds they were orthodox throat-slitters.

“As time went by,” he continued, “the waters of the lake rose, flooding the city. Our ancestors were forced to flee from their haven, and had to take refuge on the shores of the lake. Many times the barbarian tribes fell on them, killing many and carrying more off into captivity. When only a handful remained, they abandoned themselves to their fate, and resisted no more. It was then, when all hope had been lost, that the Goddess appeared to them.”

“She came in a white light, clad in a shimmering silver flame. Two score of her Lawgivers she brought with her, and they smote the surrounding tribes fiercely. Then She gathered the remnants of our people together and took them away from that terrible place.”

“Do the legends of your people tell how she took them away?,” Carter interrupted. The apocryphal mention of a couple of al’kesh or a ha’tak would go a long way toward clearing things up. Techotl shook his head.

“No, only that she brought them to this place, to Xuchotl.”

“Go on,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Sorry for interrupting.”

“Xuchotl was empty then,” he went on. “Our fathers were still fearful of their tribal enemies, despite the presence of the Goddess. In the end, she took the great bones that covered the forest and the plain, and covered them in flesh, raising the great dragons out of the dust of the earth itself. They were fearsome creatures, as you have seen for yourselves. Then, and only then, with the dragons roaming the forests of Xuchotl, were our ancestors’ minds put at ease.”

Carter and Teal’c shared a look; Carter of disbelief and Teal’c giving the raised eyebrow of skepticism.

“The Goddess dwelt among them then, showing them many things: how to grow crops without soil, how to breed livestock to achieve desired traits, and how to do the same with people. As hard as it may be to believe this now, the people living in Xuchotl then were not at war with one another. The city was peaceful.”

"Could you show us how you grow your crops?," she asked. "When we approached the city, we didn't see any signs of cultivation or livestock. "

"Of course,"Techotl replied. "It is no secret, though we no longer keep stock. Those who held that knowledge were slain long ago, and the rest were not able to recreate what was lost."

“What happened then?,” Carter prompted.

“After several years, the Goddess departed for a time, leaving her Lawgivers in charge. For nearly a full cycle of the moon, she was gone. When she returned, the people rejoiced. She was truly loved by people who saw her as a savior. But she did not remain long. Time after time, the Goddess left us, leaving the Lawgivers over us. The occasions she was gone grew more frequent, and the time she stayed grew shorter. One day, she called all the Xuchotli together and told them she would be going away for a very long time, but that she would not forsake us. The Lawgivers would remain, as would one other, as the sign and seal of her presence. That day in the great hall, she brought forth one shaped in her own image: Akna.”

Carter jerked upright.

“She’s a clone!,” she blurted.

“So it would seem,” Teal’c agreed. “That would explain why she did not recognize us.”

“It makes a certain amount of sense,” Carter commented. “We’ve known for a long time that Nirrti was focused on genetic manipulation. Given our experiences with her, knowing that she would treat these people like breeding stock is no surprise at all.”

“It also accords with her creation of the ‘dragons’,” Teal’c pointed out. “She wasn’t trying to alter them, so it would be child’s play for her to recreate them. The only question would be why?”

“Keeps the natives from getting restless,” Carter pointed out. “Think about it: You’re removed from a situation of impending doom and set down in a civilized setting surrounded by peace and plenty. The only thing bothering you is the possibility of your old enemies suddenly reappearing. By creating the dragons to act as guards, the locals can be soothed and completely bent to her will. And unlike the usual Goa’uld setup, this time their devotion will be based on love and gratitude rather than fear and terror.”

Teal’c’s lip curled in disdain and he rumbled angrily deep in his chest. 

“Who were the Lawgivers?,” Carter asked Techotl.

By way of answer he inclined his head in Teal’c’s direction.

“Your companion could tell you far better than I. According to the descriptions that have come down to us in legend, they look like he does, only clad in armor. Fierce warriors of forbidding mein who carried out the Goddess’ every command.”

“Jaffa,” Teal’c growled.

“I’ll be damned if the Colonel wasn’t right after all,” Carter marveled. “The Goa’uld really _were_ at the bottom of all this. I wonder if he has any idea yet?”

“What happened then?,” Teal’c prompted. “Did your people rebel?”

Techotl looked shocked at the suggestion.

“NO!,” he blurted. “All continued as before, only with Akna ruling in the Goddess’ stead, supported by the Lawgivers. Akna wasn’t as wise as the Goddess; several decisions she made turned out very poorly, but never did any think to rebel against her. The presence of the Lawgivers made that impossible. Besides, Akna was one of us. She lived right alongside all the rest of the Xuchotli.”

He toyed with the buckle of his girdle, seemingly lost in memories.

“As time went by, the Lawgivers left, by ones and twos, going to we knew not where. When the last left, he told us of a great battle among the Gods, and that the Goddess had need of all her Lawgivers. He said that he would return, as would the Goddess one day. With that, he was gone, and the Xuchotli were on their own for the first time in many, many _kan_.”

Carter gave Teal’c a skeptical look, to which he shrugged. 

"As you know, the System Lords are in a state of almost constant warfare among themselves. Such a situation is not inconceivable. "

Carter turned her attention back to Techotl.

“You’ve mentioned that before, the _kan_ ,” she said. “How long is it? I’ve been assuming it’s the analog to our ‘year’, a period of 365 days.”

“Oh, no,” Techotl corrected her quickly. “We also have years, composed of 260 days, the length of time between full cycles of the moon. Every 52 years the moon makes a round of the sun; _that_ is one _kan_.”

Carter’s eyes went wide.

“You said you were thirty-five _kan_ in age,” she said trying not to stammer. 

"Yes, that is correct,” he affirmed.

Doing furious mental mathematics, she totalled up 260 days times 52 years times 35 _kan_ …

Good God.

Techotl was almost _thirteen hundred_ Earth years old.

Carter experienced another one of those strange, soul-twisty moments. Teal’c was looking at her with no small measure of concern.

“Techotl here is well over a thousand of our years old,” she explained limply.

Teal’c gave her another raised eyebrow,

“Indeed?,” he said. “He bears his age well.”

Carter snorted mirthlessly. This was too shocking to be truly funny.

“It would seem that Nirrti was successful in increasing human longevity,” he added. “Doubtless a longer natural lifespan would reduce the number of times sarcophagus regeneration would be required for her clone. Assuming she intended to take that as a host body, her lifespan might be measured by scores of millennia."

“After the Lawgivers left,” Techotl continued, “the Xuchotli dwelt here in peace. Leadership fell to two brothers, Tecuhltli and Xotalanc, men of great renown. There was little to do except eating and drinking and lovemaking and child-rearing. There was no need to till the plain, for the Goddess had taught them how to grow crops without soil. As Tolkemec said, some thought to leave the city, but with the departure of the Goddess and the lawgivers, the magic that held the dragons in the forest was broken. They came nightly and fought and bellowed about the gates of the city. The plain ran red with the blood of their warfare, and it was then that-.” 

He bit his tongue in the middle of the sentence, then presently continued, though Carter and Teal’c both felt he had checked an admission he considered unwise. 

“Five years they dwelt in peace, then Xotalanc took a woman to wife, a woman whom both he and his brother desired. In his madness, Tecuhltli stole her from her husband, though in truth, she went willingly enough. Xotalanc demanded she be given back to him, and the council of the clan decided that the decision be left to the woman. She chose to remain with Tecuhltli. In his wrath, Xotalanc sought to take her back by force, and the followers of the brothers came to blows in the great hall.”

“There was much bitterness. Blood was shed on both sides. The quarrel became a feud, the feud an open war. Before, in the days of peace, Tecuhltli and Xotalanc had divided the city among themselves. Tecuhltli dwelt in the western quarter of the city, Xotalanc in the eastern. Both became armed fortresses. Anger and resentment grew into atrocity and rape and murder.”

“Didn’t anyone try to put an end to it?,” Carter wondered aloud.

“Once the sword was drawn, there was no turning back,” Techotl replied. “Blood called for blood, and vengeance followed swift on the heels of bloodshed. I know not how such matters are handled in your homeland, but we could not let spilled blood go unavenged.”

“Is there to be no end to it?,” Teal’c rumbled. Blood feuds were not unknown in Jaffa society, but were generally confined to the parties directly involved. This had devolved into a city-wide free-for-all.

“We will stop when the last Xotalanca is dead,” Techotl said simply. “They will not stop until the last Tecuhltli is dead.”

“All this killing, all over a woman long since dead and gone to dust,” Carter shook her head sadly.

“She is not dead,” Techotl interrupted her ruminations. “She is still very much alive.”

Carter and Teal’c shared a look, and Carter felt the weird twisty sensation that was getting to be way too familiar.

“Let me guess,” she growled. “The woman they quarreled over was Akna, right?”

Techotl nodded.

“If she _is_ a clone,” Carter grumbled, “those must be some seriously polluted genes she’s got; she can turn a pretty idyllic locale into a bloodbath with a minimum of effort. Breeding will tell.”

“After open war broke out, Tecuhltl had his people block all the doors connecting his quarter with the rest of the city, except for one on each floor, which could be easily defended. They went then into the pits below the city and built a wall cutting off the western end of the catacombs, where lie the tombs of the builders of Xuchotl, and those of our forefathers slain in the feud. The people of Xotalanc did likewise on the eastern quarter, leaving the central part of the city deserted. Those empty halls and chambers became our battleground.”

“Xotalanc was the wiser of the two brothers. He knew many secrets of the city he shared with no one. From the crypts of the catacombs he plundered the dead of their grisly secrets- secrets of long dead kings not wholly human. Some we have faced, such as the Burning Skull you slew, but some are rumor, judged only by the torn remains of our warriors. But all Xotalanc's magic did not aid him the night we ambushed him and a handful of his followers on the second stair of the Ape’s Tier.”

His voice sank to a caressing slur, and a faraway look grew in his eyes, as if he looked back over the years to a scene which gave him intense pleasure. Carter drew back in revulsion, and even Teal’c, hardened as he was by years of Goa’uld atrocities, looked at him with greatly diminished sympathy.

“Aye, we kept the life in him until he screamed for death as a bride. Prolonging life under torture was always a special art among our people, and that skill was exercised to the utmost on this occasion. The torturers were red to the elbows while working on him, yet were careful to not sever that delicate cord that binds life to the body. For days we feasted, and witnessed the spectacle of his torment. At last we took him living from the torture chamber and cast him into a dungeon for the rats to gnaw as he died. From that dungeon, somehow, he managed to escape, and dragged himself into the catacombs. There without a doubt he died, for the only way out of the catacombs beneath Tecuhltli is through Tecuhltli, and he never emerged through that way. His bones have never been found, and the superstitious among us swear that his ghost haunts the crypts to this day, wailing among the bones of the dead. Twelve _kan_ ago we butchered him, but the feud raged on between Tecuhltli and Xotalanc, as it will rage until the last man, the last woman is dead.”

The matter-of-factness in his tone sent a shiver down her back. He was discussing totally eradicating a people as casually as she would discuss the weather.

“It was fifty _kan_ ago that Tecuhltli stole the wife of Xotalanc. This long has the feud endured. I was born in it. All now living were born into it, except Akna, and we expect to die in it. My father and brothers have fallen, as well as my mother’s brothers. They cannot lie unavenged.”

He stroked the hilt of his sword absentmindedly, as though taking comfort in its presence. 

“We are a dying race. When the feud began, there were hundreds in each faction. Now we of Tecuhltli number only those you have seen, and the men who guard the doors, fifty in all. How many Xotalancas live, I know not, but I doubt if they are much more numerous than we. For fifty _kan_ no children have been born to us, and we have seen none among the Xotalancas. We are dying, but before we pass, we shall slay as many of the dogs of Xotalanc as the Goddess permits.”

"Were any children born after the Goddess left? ," Carter asked, forehead crinkling in thought.

"None, " Xuchotl replied. 

Carter glanced at Teal’c. 

"What do you think? "

He scowled mightily. 

"She was manipulating their bodies from the beginning. We have seen that even her successful experiments have unanticipated consequences. Perhaps the madness of the Xuchotli is one such effect. Without the Jaffa to hold them in check, their instincts ran amok.”

Carter shriveled and sank nervelessly back on the bench. For almost two thousand years the inhabitants of Xuchotl had been waging merciless, brutal war on one another. All the genius and passion and inventiveness that was the birthright of mankind had been twisted, focused on obliterating the other clan to the exclusion of all other activities. Whether that was Nirrti’s intent, or as Teal’c had suggested, an unfortunate side effect, the end result was the same. This was the human cesspool that Colonel O’Neill and Daniel Jackson were lost in. The bottom dropped out of her stomach at the thought. 

She was barely aware that Techotl was still speaking. A weird light blazed in his eyes as he recounted tale after tale of bloodlust and atrocity. In that long history of butchery a whole generation had perished. Tecuhltli himself was long dead, flayed alive by the maddened Xotalancas who had captured him. Any semblance of justification for the feud had been swept aside in a bloody thirst for vengeance. 

Without a shred of emotion, Techotl told of hideous battles fought in black corridors, of ambushes on twisting stairs, and red-handed slaughter. With an even more abysmal gleam in his dark eyes he told of men and women flayed alive, mutilated and dismembered, of captives howling under tortures so ghastly that Carter began to feel physically queasy. No wonder Techotl had trembled with the terror of capture when they met him. Yet he had gone forth to slay if he could, driven by an insane hate that was stronger than his fear.

Against the red tide of that madness, she began to feel at a loss for what to do. All her training, all her experience in warfare, however painfully gained, had nevertheless been against opponents who were sane. Megalomaniacal monsters perhaps, but wholly sane. She felt herself teetering on the edge of despair when a strong hand came to rest reassuringly on her shoulder. She glanced up to see Teal’c’s stern face watching Techotl as he narrated a lifetime's worth of insane butchery. It was a small enough thing, by itself, but that reassuring touch galvanized her into action.

The rest of the city may have been, in O'Neill's parlance, 'batshit crazy', but she was sane, and Teal’c was sane, and they were going to show what two sane people could do in a crazy world. Her face set in a determined scowl. She was operating on the assumption that O'Neill and Jackson were still alive, and she was going to find them if it meant taking a jackhammer to this rat's nest of ghouls.

Carter stood up abruptly and splashed some of the water from the urn onto her face, then ran damp fingers through her hair. The wet, cool sensation drove the fog of despair completely from her mind, and she wondered if some of Techotl’s blather about magic and hocus-pocus might be rubbing off on her. The mesmerizing effect of the Burning Skull jumped immediately to mind. Stray droplets ran down her neck and soaked into her collar as she turned a level stare at Techotl. 

“What about Tolkemec?," she asked. "Will he be true to his word and not try to stop us from leaving?"

Techotl seemed a little flustered. The whole situation he'd faced that day was completely outside his experience. The world of the Tecuhtli centered on clan loyalty and killing Xotalancas. Concepts like friendship and affection fell on barren soil in Xuchotl, as did questioning Tolkemec. The issues of motivations and divided loyalties were alien to him.

“Tolkemec would never break his word," he finally answered slowly, "but he will try to convince you to fight with us. Understand that we kill one or two Xotalancas at a time with great effort, and it is a cause for great rejoicing. Twelve dead in one day is a feat not done since the earliest days of the feud. Tolkemec will see you as a means to eradicate the rest of Xotalanc."

"And what of Akna?," Teal’c inquired. 

“Akna has her own ends in mind," Techotl whispered with a barely repressed shudder. "However strange our ways seem to you, she is even more so to us."

Carter and Teal’c drew back a few steps and held a quick whispered discussion. 

"We are not mercenaries, to be hired like so many tradesmen," Teal’c rumbled in a rare display of pique. "Especially not in the service of the Goa’uld."

“I don’t have any intention of fighting for them," Carter agreed. "There aren't any good guys here. The best thing that could happen would be the roof collapsing on the whole damn city _after_ we leave. I want to get the Colonel and Daniel and get the hell out of here."

"On the whole," Teal’c observed, "I think I preferred the dragon. It was at least a cleanly creature. The taint of madness is strong here."

Carter stared at him for a moment. 

"Byron's poetry is really rubbing off on you, Teal’c."

"I must go, my friends," Techotl interrupted impatiently. "Already I have tarried here too long."

At a nod from Carter, Teal’c let him pass. He turned at the doorway and looked at them both.

"For what it is worth, I hope you will join us. It has been ages since the word 'friend' was spoken truthfully in Xuchotl, but I believe you are friends. "

Then he was gone, making no more noise than his shadow. 

Carter sloshed more water into the basin and sponged the back of her neck. It wasn't a long hot shower, but it felt good to unload some of the dust she'd accumulated on this world. Stepping aside, she let Teal’c have a turn. For all his size and forbidding appearance he was almost catlike in his enthusiasm for personal cleanliness. 

"From Techotl’s comments, I gather we have several hours before this feast," he said. “Rest. I shall keep watch, and warn you of any who approach."

The idea sounded incredibly attractive. She hadn't slept well for the past several nights, and today's events had left her feeling wrung out.

"Are you sure?," she asked, not wanting to take advantage of his considerateness. "You know, you could nap while _I_ keep watch, too."

"The state of kel'no'reem does not limit my ability to stand watch," he pointed out. "I sense that coming events will require us to both be at our nest."

There was no arguing that, so she kicked a few more cushions into the largest pile, and seconds later slid effortlessly into blessed sleep. 


	6. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

O'Neill splashed water on his face and briefly tried to study his reflection. Several droplets collected at the corner of his mouth, and he instinctively licked at them, noting the taste. It was bitter, in a way that suggested minerals rather than foulness. 

His head was still achy, but the throbbing had abated. Ever so gently, he smoothed his hair with a damp palm, ignoring the twinge from his injured noggin. Straightening, he made a few futile swipes to brush off his BDUs before giving up.

Two Xotalancas had shepherded O'Neill and Jackson from the august presence of Xosala and installed them in a smallish room that was long on decorative carvings, but short on creature comforts. O'Neill complained long and loudly that this was a sure indication they were lodged in a low-class establishment. The closest thing to a luxury they had at the moment was a number of overstuffed cushions that appeared to be woven from raw silk. Not a single stick of furniture was in the room, with the sole exception of a short metal stand supporting an exquisitely crafted silver basin of water.

Jackson had kicked several of the cushions into a rough pile, and was lounging back on them, studying the room. After cooling their heels for the better part of two hours, O'Neill decided that, willing guests or not, it was incumbent on him to put Uncle Sam's best foot forward at the coming feast, hence his doomed attempts at sprucing up. He rubbed a hand over his chin, feeling the rasp of stubble, and wondered if it would be a waste of time to try to shave with his field knife. A moment later, he remembered that had been one of the few items confiscated from them.

O’Neill put his hands back into the water. It was cold, but not icy, in contrast with the air temperature, which was that of a very pleasant short-sleeve working environment. He found himself idly wondering what kind of climate control system the city had. This much stone should have been considerably cooler, as well as dank and musty. Yet the air was fresh, the temperature just right, and the floors as dust - free as they would have been with an army of janitors on the job. Feeling the cold begin to seep into his bones, he pulled his hands out of the water, slinging drops all over the reclining Jackson. 

"Was that really necessary?," the younger man grumbled.

"Payback's a bitch," O'Neill answered. "I owed you for the bridge. "

"Never pass up the chance to get even, hunh?"

"Never ever," O'Neill agreed. "I have an excellent memory. Speaking of which…"

He toggled the radio. 

"Carter, Teal’c, you have a copy?"

Empty seconds ticked by.

"Carter, Teal’c, please respond. "

More empty seconds ticked by.

"Anyone on this net, please respond. "

Nothing.

"You think someone else might be out there?," Jackson asked. 

"Always a possibility, " O'Neill allowed. "Hammond could get antsy, something could come up requiring our special expertise, the President could want Carter's lasagna recipe, endless possibilities…," he trailed off into silence. 

"I noticed you didn’t mention them to Xosala," Jackson observed, eyes narrowing slightly. 

O’Neill dried his hands on his pant legs.

"To be honest," he admitted, "I was hoping he'd forget all about them. The last thing I want is for any of these hopping half-wits to take an interest in one of us. With luck, Techotl’s people turned out to be friendlier, and Carter won't have to blow up any helpless masonry, like we did." 

"That was your own fault for bringing up the Thunder of Heaven. You have to admit, things have gone better than we had any right to expect, " Jackson pointed out, trying to be helpful. 

"Things have frankly sucked since the moment we set foot on this planet," O'Neill replied sourly. "Not to change the subject, but what can we expect from this 'feast'?"

Jackson laced his fingers behind his head and sank even deeper into his cushion pile.

"Rat souffle, eyeball soup, maybe even chilled monkey brains for dessert if we're lucky."

"Thanks, Dr. Jones, but I saw that movie, too. I wasn't referring to the cuisine. I seem to recall from a sociology class about a hundred years ago that more primitive societies may engage in pastimes that Miss Manners would not approve of. I really don't want to have to do any more magic tricks." 

"Oh, I think we've established our _bona fides_ ," Jackson replied. " We're in a lot more danger of suddenly having an arranged marriage, or something of that nature."

"I should be safe, but you could be in trouble, pretty boy,” O’Neill ribbed. “Good luck explaining that to Hammond." 

“I’m sure they mistakenly confuse age with wisdom,” Jackson bit back. “You may not be off the hook yet.” In all honesty, it wasn't General Hammond that O’Neill was worried about having to make that particular explanation to, but someone much closer.

"You wanna freshen up?," he asked Jackson, waving at the basin. "Good impression, and all that, don't cha know."

Jackson made a face.

"We're past that point, I think. Cultivating some personal funk may be a good idea, at least in terms of personal space.”

"I always knew you had a strong hippie streak hiding in there somewhere, " O'Neill mumbled, giving himself another quick glance in the water's blurry reflection. 

He had just started kicking his own pile of pillows together, and was about to accuse Jackson of taking all the best ones when the younger man suddenly sat up straight. 

"Somebody's coming."

“A lotta somebodies, or just a little somebody?,” O’Neill quizzed, straining to hear.

“A couple,” Jackson answered. “I’d bet it’s our escorts to the party.”

“Oh, yay,” O’Neill said, without a trace of joy. “I was in serious danger of having to take a nap.”

“Pretty tough to miss one at your age, isn’t it?,” Jackson jibed.

O’Neill jabbed a belligerent finger in his direction.

“Your time’s coming, whippersnapper, and when it does, I will point and laugh my ass off.”

“That’s no way to talk to a fellow magician,” Jackson rebutted loftily, as a swarthy figure entered the room. It was one of their escorts from earlier, recognizable by the broad yellow stripe on his loincloth. Irreverently, O’Neill wondered if that was how they identified each other. No weapons aside from his belt knife were visible, so apparently the invitation to eat wasn’t going to be an overt ambush.

“You said ‘a couple’,” he told Jackson accusingly, earning a shrug by way of reply.

“Come,” the man grunted, gesturing presumably in the general direction of their eventual destination. 

“Great to see you again, too,” O’Neill snarked.

“Come,” the man repeated, pointing this time at the hallway.

“Do you ever say anything else?,” O’Neill asked.

“Come,” the man said for the third time.

“Guess that’s a ‘no’,” Jackson commented with another shrug. “Maybe we should come with him?” 

He clumsily extricated himself from the mound of pillows; getting down was always so much easier than getting up. O’Neill casually drifted closer to the door.

“Speaking as a powerful sorcerer, I really don’t care for being ordered around, ya know?,” he complained. The comment was ostensibly made to Jackson, but was aimed at the guard. From all outward appearances, it didn’t even register.

“Very well, young man,” Jackson told the guard with a magnanimous wave of the hand, “lead on.”

“Follow,” the guard grunted before retreating down the hallway.

“ _Two_ words,” O’Neill muttered. “By God, it’s a start.”

The second man Jackson had heard was loitering in the hall, and when they passed, he fell in behind them. As they walked, O’Neill couldn’t help but marvel at the architecture, though it generally wasn’t his cup of tea.

The fortress of the Xotalancas was built on the same cyclopean scale as the rest of Xuchotl, but the actual construction was of a different type. Where the other parts of the city were smoothly finished with jade walls and crimson-hued floors, this quarter appeared to be either unfinished or of a rougher mode of building. Stylistically, it was blockier, less artistic. The walls were finely cut ashlars of granite and andesite, laid with almost machinelike precision, and polished to a mirror-bright sheen. The exposed stone displayed an intricate tracery of veined minerals uncomfortably reminiscent of blood vessels. 

“This is different,” O’Neill stage-whispered.

“You noticed that, too?,” Jackson asked, half-jokingly. “I’ve been trying to figure out if this is older, or they were unfinished, or just a different style.” 

“Still haven’t seen anything close to a proper bedroom, either.”

“Maybe they have some sort of communal sleeping arrangement,” the younger man suggested.

“Might explain why we haven’t seen any kids running around,” O’Neill commented. “Nobody wants to do the nasty with Aunt Maude looking over their shoulder.”

The thought caused Jackson an involuntary twitch.

“You just had to go there,” he grumbled accusingly. “Anybody else would have had the thought and let it go, but you had to dig a hole and climb down in it and dig some more.”

O’Neill smiled proudly. If his Air Force career didn’t work out, he could always fall back on baiting Jackson full-time. It didn’t pay as well, but was ever so much more enjoyable.

They were escorted through a twisty maze of corridors and halls, alternating between the white marble of the reception hall and the polished granite of their… holding cell? Waiting room? The proper name would be dependent on what the Xotalancas’ intentions turned out to be. They might not be in any immediate danger, but that could change in an instant. 

The corridor debouched into a cavernous room, larger even than Xosala’s ‘throne room’. It was of curious circular design and large enough, O’Neill thought, to have hosted professional sporting events. The mental image of an indoor baseball diamond, complete with knickerbocker-clad Xotalancas twitched a smirk across his face.

The hall was several orders of magnitude too large for the crowd occupying it. What they assumed to be the entire population of Xotalanc didn’t fill up a tenth of the floor space. Like the rest of Xuchotl, it was clear evidence that the current inhabitants were interlopers, not founders.

A score of low tables had been arranged in a loose circle, surrounded by the ubiquitous cushions that seemed to be the chief form of soft furnishings hereabouts. The tables were piled high with food, so much so that it was evident even from a distance that this was to be as much of a genuine ‘feast’ as their hosts were able to produce. 

Many Xotalancas were already in attendance, reclining at the tables like the Romans of old. Several others drifted around the room, forming floating knots of conversation that invariably stopped when O’Neill and Jackson approached. Jackson watched the people, still curious about their social structure; however repellent their pastimes may have been, he was an antiquarian at heart and this was too good an opportunity to pass up. O’Neill studied the tables, groaning under the weight of their provender. He nudged Jackson.

“How many of them you think there are?,” he asked under his breath.

“Maybe fifty, give or take,” Jackson answered. “Why?”

O’Neill did a little mental calculation.

“I’ll admit a ham sandwich wouldn’t hurt any of these folks,” he observed, “but the amount of grub they’ve got out would feed a company of Marines. Way out of proportion to the number of people here.”

Jackson considered for a moment.

“They don’t necessarily think we’re gods, but it’s a good bet they think we’ve got some kind of divine connection. All this,” he waved a hand at their dinner, “is a way of showing off how prosperous they are; how they’ve been good stewards of the gods’ bounty.”

“Making a good impression?”

“Something like that,” the archaeologist conceded.

“Would’ve been a damned good idea if _someone else_ had decided to do that, too,” O’Neill snarked.

“You said you liked hippies,” Jackson shot back under his breath, as they were ushered to a table near what they assumed was the head of the group. The small groups of Xotalancas floating around the hall gradually made their way to other seats around the circle. The tables slowly filled up until only one was left empty, next to Jackson and O’Neill.

“I guess his lordship wants to make an entrance,” O’Neill observed _sotto voce_ , casting an appraising eye over their prospective dinner. Any fears he might have entertained about the cuisine were quickly laid to rest. The fare was simple but passable, being wholly fruits and vegetables, with a number of large bowls scattered throughout. The absence of meat was reassuring, given the circumstances. 

“Not a single monkey brain to be seen,” Jackson observed, pretending to be disappointed.

“No,” O’Neill countered with a watering mouth, “but I think I’m about to enter Sweet Corn Heaven.” 

Several large platters heaped with steaming golden cobs were in view, as were mounds of mangos, and a pile of papaya. Jackson, hungry though he was, took a keen professional interest in the display.

“Maize, tomato, cassava,” he muttered to himself, making a running list. “quinoa, amaranth…,” he trailed off into silence.

“I really wish that self-important sonofabitch would show up,” O’Neill grumbled. “My stomach thinks my throat’s been cut.”

“Jack, this is important,” Jackson began.

“No kidding,” O’Neill interrupted, “dinner is _always_ important.”

“All these foods,” Jackson tried once more.

“Which I am dying to try,” O’Neill interrupted yet again.

“They’re all Mesoamerican in origin. They must have brought all these species with them when they came here.”

“That shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise,” O’Neill replied. “I seem to recall you being positive these were Mesoamericans, so that kinda follows, right?”

“Yes,” Jackson allowed, “but the sheer _variety_ is surprising. I’ve been operating on the theory that these people were brought here as Goa’uld slaves, but this… this opens up all kinds of other possibilities.”

“How so?”

“When Ra moved slaves to Abydos, they only brought a handful of staple crops along. The rest they domesticated from local flora. The same with the jaffa on Chulak, and others we’ve encountered throughout the galaxy. These people have at least double the number of transplanted species, and none I don’t recognize.”

“I recognize that, that’s a crookneck squash,” O’Neill interrupted.

“Oaxaca, 9000 B.C.”

“Corn, obviously.”

“Balsas River valley, 5000 B.C.” 

“Potatoes, Daniel, that’s European. My Irish ancestors will be ticked at you if you say anything about those potatoes.”

“Altiplano, Bolivia, 7000 B.C.”

“Shut up, Dr. Jackson,” O’Neill grumbled.

“Would you rather I let you make an ass of yourself when you write your formal report?,” Jackson asked with a hurt look.

“Next you’re going to tell me those really aren’t giant pineapples?,” O’Neill asked with a downcast look.

“No, they’re legit. Parana River, 3000 B.C. All these cultivars are incredibly old.”

Just as O’Neill was about to sink into the depths of culinary despair, Xosala arrived. He had changed his costume, swapping the ornate loincloth for a shimmery robe of iridescent crimson fabric. 

"How do we play this?," Jackson whispered. 

"The ball's in his court," O'Neill replied under his breath. "We just sit here and act like royal guests and hope nothing gets out of hand. "

"And if it does?"

"I'd rather it didn’t, but if he wants to go all Ming the Merciless on us, we have our sidearms, and I've still got two frags left. We can wipe the floor with them if we have to."

Xosala seated himself at the empty table, and without preamble the assembled crowd began eating.

"Good," O'Neill mumbled. "I hate long speeches." 

Imitating their hosts, they dug in. Jackson didn't realize how hungry he had been. 

There were no utensils, and in place of plates they used large fibrous plant leaves. One of the bowls held a thick green sauce which gave off a sharp aroma. Following the lead of the Xotalancas, O’Neill broke off a chunk of potato and scooped some up. Trying a tentative bite, he was pleasantly surprised. It's flavor was not unlike an Italian pesto, with an earthy aftertaste. He took another scoop, then shoved the bowl over to Jackson. 

"Give it a try," he said around a mouthful of potato. Jackson put down the corncob he was working over and sampled some.

"Wow, that's good," he said, eyes wide.

"How's the corn?," O'Neill asked. 

Jackson swallowed another mammoth mouthful of potato before replying. 

"If we'd brought butter and salt with us, they'd probably crown us kings, but not bad otherwise. "

O'Neill grabbed a corncob and added some mango to his leaf. 

"Things are looking up," he muttered, sampling a slice of something small, round and crunchy. "I guess this isn't water chestnut? "

"Jicama," Jackson answered, shaking some quinoa onto his leaf.

"So wizards eat like regular men," Xosala rumbled from his table. His dark eyes had not missed any of their interactions. 

"Like regular _hungry_ men," O'Neill corrected.

"We thank you for your hospitality, O Great Xosala, " Jackson added.

"It is splendid, is it not?," he bellowed back, waving a vast hand at the room.

"Truly, your people have been blessed," Jackson agreed.

"Drink deep, fill your belly; enjoy the bounty of the goddess," Xosala said in a voice which would brook no argument. 

"Now why does that sound like, 'eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die'?," O'Neill grumbled. 

"Because that's pretty much their life in a nutshell, " Jackson muttered back. “Still good advice.”

O’Neill picked up another of the stone bowls, this one filled with a watery yellow liquid. He sniffed it and gave it a swish around the bowl.

“What is it?,” Jackson asked, leaning over to take a look.

“Dunno,” O’Neill responded. “Could be goat piss for all I know.”

“We haven't seen any goats,” Jackson pointed out.

“Point.”

O’Neill tried a tentative slurp. It was fruity and tingled over his tongue like something lightly carbonated, but was really quite pleasant. He was going back for an actual drink when the aftertaste hit his palate like a sledgehammer.

“Aftertaste” was something of a misnomer. “Afterburn” would have been more accurate. The fruit flavor and carbonation were covering up an alcohol content high enough to strip paint off the walls. Nestled inside the alcohol burn was an herbal burn that made him suspect chilis of some kind. O’Neill _huffed_ in surprise and felt the fumes rolling up his throat. The small sip he’d taken puddled in his stomach like a tablespoon of lava. The effect was not unlike expecting a drink of tea and getting a shot of exquisitely aged scotch whisky instead.

“That stuff is not for the young,” he managed to gasp out, reaching for what he hoped was a bowl of water. He’d learned his lesson; wetting a forefinger in the bowl’s contents, he licked it to be sure it was indeed water. Jackson stopped him as he was about to empty the bowl.

“Jack,” he muttered under his breath, “that’s your finger bowl. It’s for washing your hands, not drinking.”

“Not caring,” O’Neill managed to rasp out, keeping a death grip on the stone vessel.

“Then use your canteen, jackass.”

O’Neill plunked the bowl back down, sloshing it mightily in the process, untabbed his canteen and took a long pull at it. He smacked his lips in delight. The Colorado Springs Municipal Water Supply would never give Fiji a run for its money in terms of water quality, but it tasted like ambrosia after his unwitting draft of the Xotalancas’ homebrew.

“Pretty rough?,” Jackson asked, not really trying to hide a smirk.

“Too stout for the likes of you, young man,” came the snarky reply.

“Is the wine not to your liking?,” rumbled Xosala.

“Delightful,” O’Neill answered. “Really reminds me of Mad Dog, the way it clobbers the palate.”

By way of reply, Xosala upended an enormous beaker of the liquid into his cavernous gullet, following up the performance with a resonating belch. Apparently, the royal ructation was a signal to the assembled diners that the etiquette standards could be loosened, for the mood in the room immediately relaxed. Several other belches followed Xosala’s, and the gabble of random conversation began soon after.

Appetite sated, Jackson started to slow down a little. Five cobs, stripped clean of maize, littered the plate-leaf in front of him like the bare bones of vanquished enemies. He leaned back, absentmindedly nibbling on a hunk of pineapple, and watched the crowd.

Whether it was the fulfillment of whatever formal structure the occasion had, or simply the effects of the alcohol being consumed, the mood was definitely relaxed. Insults were tossed back and forth, along with the occasional corncob or avocado pit. These last were hurled with pinpoint accuracy, and if seen in time, were deflected with whatever lay ready at hand.

No one, he noticed, dared throw anything Xosala’s way. Evidently, as chief he was exempt from horseplay.

O’Neill finally finished eating and reclined with a self-satisfied rumble of approval. It had been a long time since he’d partaken of a purely vegetarian meal, but it had been a good dinner, and a welcome break.

“Does our poor food not sit well in your bellies?,” Xosala asked, not quite shouting, but definitely louder than normal. His speech was starting to get a little thick as well.

“Looks like somebody’s had a little too much to drink,” Jackson deadpanned.

Xosala continued to look at them expectantly.

“Should I send for the makers of your food and have their throats cut?”

“What is he on about?,” O’Neill grumbled. 

“In a lot of different cultures, you compliment the food by burping,” Jackson explained quietly, swallowing as much air as he could. After a moment he emitted a thunderous belch that wasn’t as loud as Xosala’s, but was considerably longer. This action was met with a rumble of approval from the other feast-goers.

Xosala’s slitted eyes continued to stare at O’Neill.

“You’re seriously screwing with me, right?,” he whispered to Jackson.

“Jack, if you don’t, some poor bastard is going to get dragged out of the kitchen and murdered right in front of you,” Jackson muttered. “This is hospitality stuff, and he’s dead serious about it.”

“Christ Almighty,” O’Neill grumbled, standing up. “This is like being back in high school again. What’s next? Do we light our farts?”

“Just do it,” Jackson hissed.

“I’m not promising you won’t see my dinner again,” O’Neill said, swallowing a stomachful of air. He let it settle, and then, in true Jack O’Neill fashion, burped as much of the alphabet as he could, making it all the way to ‘i’.

Xosala seemed satisfied, and the crowd approved, some going as far as banging the tables in their enthusiasm.

“You’ve had some experience at that,” Jackson observed as O’Neill resumed his reclining position.

“As hard as it is to believe, I _was_ a teenager once, a long time ago,” O’Neill snarked. 

“Sure,” Jackson agreed, “but I don’t see any reason to bring the Revolutionary War into it.”

“Ouch,” O’Neill groaned, clutching his chest in mock agony. “Your rapier wit hit me right in the corncob.”

Something small and black whizzed between them, narrowly missing Jackson’s ear.

“What was that?,” he asked, looking around the room as much as he could without moving his head.

All eyes were suddenly glued to them as they reclined at their table. Even Xosala hunched forward, eyes ablaze with a primal, predatory look.

“One of these jackasses just decided to bait us,” O’Neill answered. He caught a twitch of motion out of the corner of his eye, and nonchalantly leaned to his left as a mango stone flew past, clattering to the stone floor behind them. 

“Please tell me it’s OK for mighty magicians like us to smite them with boils or something like that,” O’Neill groused.

“Maybe just a little less drastic,” Jackson replied. This time he saw the Xotalanca winding up to throw, off to O’Neill’s left. 

"Incoming, ten o’clock," he hissed. 

O’Neill snapped his head around, and managed to get a hand up just in time to catch an avocado pit. He stared daggers at the thrower, and fought with himself over whether it was unbecoming to wizard-kind to beanball a loincloth wearing primitive. He palmed the slippery seed, and thumbed it back across the open space like a giant marble. The pit landed in a bowl of liquor with a loud _ploink_ , sending a splash of wine onto the offending Xotalanca.

The native sat in stunned silence, dripping booze, while his companions erupted in peals of laughter. Even Xosala roared his approval.

"Looks like we're being accepted into the clan," Jackson observed under his breath.

"Who knew my mastery of beer pong would wind up being a diplomatic tool?," O'Neill muttered back.

The relaxed mood lightened even further, and O’Neill was daring to hope they were making progress with the Xotalancas when Xosala suddenly bolted to his feet, upsetting his table and sending food and liquor rolling and splashing in all directions. He glared in murderous fury at the far entrance to the hall.

Outlined against the gloom of the corridor was a vague ophidian shape that slowly, painfully crept into the gallery. Flanking either side of its serpent-like form were two Xotalancan warriors who looked much the worse for wear. They were sweaty and dust streaked and one walked with a noticeable limp.

"What in God's name is that thing?," Jackson asked, recoiling in disgust-tinged surprise.

"Still think these are the good guys?," O'Neill mumbled under his breath.

"I don't think anybody here is the 'good guys'," Jackson managed to rasp in reply.

As its massive form writhed into full view they could see it wasn’t a true snake, though the differences would likely be lost on anyone but a zoologist. Xosala continued to stare at the creature, face white with rage.

It wriggled and slid across the chamber, collapsing practically at Xosala’s feet. A terrible wound across its head oozed blood and ichor, leaving a sticky trail that marked its progress.

"Who dared…?," Xosala managed to grate between clenched teeth.

The animal have a long, drawn out _hisssss_ and collapsed into a lifeless heap. Its tail twitched spasmodically and then lay still.

One of the flanking guards hesitantly approached Xosala and spent several seconds whispering into his ear, from time to time jerking his head in Jackson and O'Neill's direction. Xosala flushed a furious shade of red and viciously backhanded the guard to the ground.

"Fool! Dog!," he spat. "You slink into my presence with the Crawler wounded unto death and tell this tale of failure. Had I time, you would scream under my knife for days. Begone!"

As the terrified warrior fled, Xosala punctuated his rage by flinging one of the stone bowls after him.

"Rally the clan!," he thundered into the suddenly still room. "Empty the city! We go to war!"

  
  
  


Carter was shaken out of a thankfully dreamless sleep by Teal’c.

“Someone approaches,” he rumbled.

She yawned and tried to rub the last vestiges of sleep from gummy eyes before rolling to her feet. Apparently her body had really needed an afternoon nap. Carter cast a sidelong glance at her companion; he seemed fresh as the proverbial daisy. Not for the first time, she felt envious of the Jaffa’s ability to replace sleep with meditation. For his part, Teal’c frequently wondered how any of the Tau’ri survived the daily need to be reduced to a helpless state of unconsciousness.

Closer and closer, furtive footsteps whispered down the hall, and both felt an unwitting tension ratchet higher with each step. There was no good reason for stealth in the halls of Xuchotl, but plenty of bad ones. None of the Tecuhltli had shown the slightest ill-will towards them, but that could always change. Paranoia occasionally had its uses.

The steps ghosted closer, making no more sound than falling leaves, and the dour form of Techotl stalked around the corner. Carter and Teal’c unconsciously relaxed, and when he saw them already awaiting him, Techotl’s face split into a wide grin.

“My friends,” he beamed. “You slept well?”

Raised in the cold confines of the fortress of Xuchotl, Techotl had absorbed the ongoing feud with his mother’s milk. Hate, and bloodlust, and the thirst for vengeance were as natural as breathing to him. His hand felt empty without a blade in it. His stealthy stride was a consequence of centuries of guerilla warfare in the stone city. The sum of his experiences had shaped him into a weapon, one that felt as little compunction over bloody deeds as the lion felt over using fang and claw. He was content to slay as many enemies as he could before he fell himself. This was his life, and according to his lights, it was a good one.

But a snake had entered his Garden of Eden, in the form of SG-1.

He had seen them wade through the Xotalancas in a manner incomprehensible to his eyes, and as ruthlessly as any Tecuhltli. But when a helpless enemy had lain prostrate before them, they had pulled back and refrained from the death-blow. When the team had divided, Carter easily slid into the leadership position with no challenges to her right to do so. Teal’c, he knew, was a much more formidable warrior. In his experience, that meant the jaffa should lead, and yet he had suffered Carter to take charge without so much as a grumble of disapproval. Techotl had witnessed the mutual respect and deference Carter and Teal’c gave each other, a thing unheard-of among the Tecuhltli. Leaders were respected, but out of fear, and that respect was not a two-way street.

Looking at them now, he felt an odd sensation in his chest. It was a tingle, like the anticipation he felt before going into battle, but it was also strangely different. It was warm and not the least bit frightening. Techotl had no way of knowing, but for the first time in hundreds of years, one of the Tecuhltli was feeling the first stirrings of genuine affection. The bond he was forming with SG-1, tenuous as it may have been, formed a tiny oasis of humanity in the cold citadel of madness.

“Reasonably well,” Carter allowed, wishing she could nap just a little more.

“And you, my friend?,” he asked Teal’c.

The hulking jaffa inclined his head in a slight bow.

“I have rested.”

Techotl rubbed his hands together.

“It is well,” he said. “The time for the feast approaches. If you are ready, we shall go.”

Teal’c waggled his staff meaningfully, giving Carter a questioning look. The gist was clear: 'weapons or no weapons?'. She would have preferred that to be someone else's decision, but being in command meant it was her call.

They were dependent on Tolkemec's good will. If things got ugly, shooting their way out wouldn't improve matters. This situation would have to be dealt with by cool heads using the dreaded 'D' word: diplomacy. 

She shook her head, and left her P90 on the bench next to the water basin. Scowling, Teal’c laid his staff beside it. Carter nodded assent, and Techotl led them from the room.

“All the Tecuhltli except the door wardens await you in the Hall of Pillars,” he said over his shoulder, as they traversed a veritable rabbit warren of empty corridors. “Everyone wishes to see you.”

Carter gave Teal’c a sidelong glance.

“Looks like we’re celebrities,” she quipped.

“I shall refuse to give autographs,” he replied, shaking his head in mock disdain.

She tamped down a snort of laughter while Techotl eyed them, not understanding the conversation, but enviously recognizing the easy familiarity the two shared.

Teal’c had kept a rough sense of direction and was starting to get a feel for Techultli’s layout. As they rounded a bend into yet another deserted corridor, he frowned.

“We are not returning to the same hall?,” he asked.

“No, my friend,” Techotl reassured him. “Tolkemec holds court in the Hall of Justice. We are going to the Hall of Pillars. It is more suitable for feasting.”

Another hundred paces brought them to the gallery in question, and gazing around the room, Carter was glad it had, for this was one of the more curious chambers she had ever seen.

The room was circular in plan, and it was cavernous, being at least a hundred yards across. The walls were covered with concentric bands of discs, each about a yard across, and cast of some metal that showed verdigris green with age. There were thousands of the discs, stacked in their banded array from floor to ceiling, and she couldn’t tell if they were decorative in nature or served some purpose.

Curiosity was piled on top of curiosity. In the midst of the great circular floor stood a ring of immense stone obelisks, carved with a writhing script Carter wasn’t familiar with. The pillars, from which the chamber presumably took its name, were every inch of thirty feet tall, and cut with laser-edged precision, giving the impression of being components of some great machine.

Discs and obelisks, marvelous though they may be, were only noticed at a second glance, for on entering the hall, their eyes were riveted to the center of the chamber. There stood a low circular wall or kerb, reaching to perhaps knee height, and forming the boundary to a well sunk into the floor. Emerging from the depths of this well was a golden jet of flame, reaching nearly to the same height as the obelisks.

So large a jet should have produced an ear-splitting roar, but instead there was only a gentle susurration, not unlike water rippling down a quiet stream. Intermittently, bright amethyst sparks emerged from the golden fountain and flared briefly before consuming themselves as they drifted toward the ground. Being this close to such a massive open fire should have left them with scorched and shriveled flesh, but despite it’s brilliant light, the jet gave off no detectable heat. 

Looking with the gaze of skeptical science, the whole arrangement made zero sense. This room was a blaring mass of contradictions: in form, in proportions, in function it could not be, yet it was. Confronted with still more evidence of the complete _otherness_ of the stone city, she cringed.

But staring deep into the heart of the flame, Carter felt a deep and abiding sense of peace, of reassurance that no matter how bad things looked now, they would all work out alright in the end. She feared the hypnosis that the Burning Skull had emanated before, but that had held an aura of terror and futility. This was warm, inviting. In that, it was completely alien to everything they had encountered thus far in Xuchotl.

“Come, my friends,” Techotl said, ushering them around the flame. In a supreme irony, the Techuhltli had lived with the jet for so long that they spared it no more thought than Carter gave to doorknobs. It was neither more nor less than the tapestries that covered the walls in the Hall of Justice as far as they were concerned.

The people of Tecuhltli were arranged in a large semicircle of ivory tables and benches on the far side of the room. Tolkemec and Akna stood as they approached and after an exchange of glances, Carter and Teal’c seated themselves. Techotl placed himself at the table to attend to the wants of his friends, seeming to consider it a privilege to see after their needs. He inspected the food and drink the others brought in gold vessels and dishes and tasted each before placing it before his guests. 

While they ate, Tolkemec sat in silence, watching them from under his broad black brows. Akna sat beside him, chin cupped in her hands and elbows resting on her knees. While Tolkemec was dressed in the same clothing as before, she had changed costume into a silk and thread-of-gold travesty that left very little to the imagination. Her dark, enigmatic eyes, burning with a mysterious light, never left Carter’s form. Behind her seat, a sullen-faced girl waved a plumed fan.

The food was fruit of an unfamiliar, exotic kind, but very palatable, varied by the occasional vegetable which seemed almost, but not quite familiar. For drink there was a thin crimson wine that carried a heady tang. Carter and Teal’c both avoided this last, Carter preferring to have a clear head, and Teal’c for other reasons. 

There was very little conversation, even among the Tecuhltli. For the most part, they put their heads down and disposed of their dinner in a workmanlike fashion, though there were a few who watched the strangers in their midst, more out of curiosity than anything else. That suited both Carter and Teal’c, who were not diplomats and hated to be stared at while eating.

Techotl took his duties as food-taster very seriously, and when Carter suggested he join them at their table, seemed astonished. After several entreaties, he finally sat with them, a self-satisfied look plastered on his face. As ruler, the Tecuhltli instinctively looked to Tolkemec, but Techotl was gaining an immense amount of prestige by virtue of his close association with the strangers.

After eating in silence for several minutes, Carter ventured to break the ice.

"We thank you for your hospitality, O Great Tolkemec," she said. He acknowledged the remark with magnanimous wave of the hand. 

"I'm surprised you set so generous a table, " she continued. "We saw no sign of fields when we approached the city." 

He seemed surprised for a moment.

"Our crops are grown within the walls of Xuchotl itself," he answered. "We dare not leave the city because of the dragons."

She recalled Techotl's story about the goddess teaching them to grow crops without soil, and wondered if they had some sort of crude hydroponic arrangement. 

"May we see how?," she asked. 

Tolkemec seemed taken aback, like a modern homeowner asked for a tour of his bathroom. 

"Certainly, if you wish it," he replied. "Techotl will take you after the feast."

After a moment’s hesitation he went on.

"But look you, friends, surely the Goddess has sent you to bring victory to Techuhltli. You say you are explorers, which I doubt not, but you are also great fighters. Why not fight for us? We have wealth in abundance; precious jewels are as common in Xuchotl as cobblestones in the cities of the ancient home. Some we brought away in our flight. Some, like the fire stones, we discovered here. Aid us to wipe out the Xotalancas and we shall give you all you can carry!"

Carter hoped the revulsion she felt wasn’t showing on her face. She'd never been invited to participate in genocide before, and it wasn't a pleasant sensation. Teal’c stiffened at her side, and she recalled his words earlier about being hired like tradesmen. There was no doubt how he felt about it. 

"You ask something I can't grant," she replied, choosing her words carefully. 

"You had no difficulty killing them earlier, " Tolkemec pointed out. 

"When we are attacked, we defend ourselves like anyone else would do. What you are asking goes far beyond that. I don't have the power to make that decision. As Teal’c said earlier, our concern is finding our friends. "

"Ah!," Tolkemec exclaimed, looking at the hulking Jaffa. "You are Tee-alk?"

Teal’c essayed a nod of the head.

"My name," he rumbled in confirmation.

"I'm so sorry, " Carter quickly apologized. "Formal introductions completely slipped my mind. I'm Major Samantha Carter. "

Tolkemec stood and banged his empty wine goblet for attention. 

"My people, " he announced grandly, " I present to you Major Xamantha Carterr and Tee-alk of…"

Trailing off, he bent towards Carter and urgently hissed, "Where did you say you were from?"

"Earth," she blurted, unthinking.

"Of Earf," Tolkemec told the crowd.

"Earth," Carter corrected in an undertone.

"In this dark hour, these, our new friends, have slain TWELVE of the dogs of Xotalanc!"

Half of the assembled crowd cheered while the other half spit at the name of Xotalanc and _then_ cheered.

Grinning wildly, Tolkemec launched into a heated diatribe about the Xotalancas, listing a litany of grievous offenses and indignities committed against the Techuhltli. Carter was only half listening, having recognized several bullet points from Techotl’s history lesson earlier, when Techotl grasped her arm with a sinewy hand.

"You should not have done that," he whispered. At her confused look he clarified. 

"Your names. Those were not your true names, were they?"

"Yes," she whispered back. The thought of using an alias never occurred to her. There was no need, and deceit ran against every principle they were based on. Techotl hung his head.

"By telling your true names, you have given Tolkemec power over you. He will make a great magic, and compel you to fight for Tecuhltli."

Remembering the Flaming Skull, the fiery pillar, and several other weird things she'd seen today, Carter didn’t immediately discount the idea. She tried a different tack.

"That wouldn’t be so bad for you, would it? ," she asked quietly. 

Unexpectedly, Techotl had a twisty, unsettled feeling in his stomach. He didn't know it, but he was standing on a knife's edge. His entire existence centered around loyalty to the clan and killing Xotalancas. Anything that furthered those goals was acceptable. 

Balanced against that was his growing affection for his two new friends, people who had awakened feelings in him that had lain dormant all his life. People who, even though he was a stranger, had stepped up and saved his neck from a Xotalancan blade.

When Teal’c had rebuffed the Flaming Skull and roused him to his senses, calling him to battle, Techotl had begun a fundamental change. The Other had always been an enemy, clan was all. But now the Other had proved it could also be a friend and fight by his side. The notion had been working incrementally on him ever since. Now, those who had wrought this change in him were themselves facing possible danger. He faced the age-old question :

Who am I?

It wasn’t philosophical meandering. His world was ruled by blood and iron, there was no room for sophistry. Would he remain faithful to Techuhltli no matter what, or did he dare risk having divided loyalties? Was he willing to forsake those who had saved him in obeisance to the clan?

He made his choice. 

"Not against your will, Major Xamantha Carterr."

She grinned at the nativization of her name.

"'Carter' is fine," she reassured him, not having a clue about his inner turbulence, but very happy they had found a reliable ally.

Tolkemec finally ground to a halt, having rhetorically squeezed every last drop of blood out of the feud's history. Appearing suddenly weary, he sank back into his seat, steadied by Akna. He gulped wine before turning his attention back to Carter.

"You see that, like you, we are also defending ourselves. Xotalanc will not stop until the last Techuhltli is dead."

Carter frowned, wondering how much of his speech making was for their benefit and how much was to get his own people stirred up.

"There may be different ways we can help each other," she said slowly. "Much has changed since the goddess brought your people here."

Despite the strange setting, Carter was on firm footing here. SG-1's mandate was exploration, and first contact situations necessitated a feeling-out process before formal relations could begin. On more than one occasion, they had been bitten by forging ahead before they completely understood the situation, and she didn't have any intention that this turn out that way.

Tolkemec brightened. 

"I will not deceive you," he said. "That thought has been much on my mind since your arrival." 

Blood feud notwithstanding, he recognized fully how their sudden appearance had shifted the whole paradigm Xuchotl was built on.

"You understand," she replied, grasping his intentions, "that I do not speak for my people. One of your warriors could not speak for all of Tecuhltli unless you commanded it so. I'm in the same situation."

"I see," he said, deflating a little. "But your rulers could.

Carter snorted, thinking of Hammond as their 'ruler'.

"Yes," she answered. "He could."

"He is a great man, your Lord?," Tolkemec ventured. 

Carter’s innate American-ness recoiled at calling anyone her 'Lord', but she took the question in the spirit it was intended. 

"One of the finest I've ever met," she affirmed. 

"Then we shall have no difficulty coming to an accord," Tolkemec said with a self-satisfied air. In the Tecuhltli mindset, greatness equalled martial prowess. "It is fitting that two great rulers be the parties to such an agreement. "

To his way of thinking, this was practically a done deal, and he leaned back, visualizing Tecuhltli warriors roaming the halls of Xuchotl, armed with the strangers' fabulous thunder clubs. 

Seeing their leader in pleasant conversation with their guests, the other feast-goers relaxed and began whispering among themselves, casting surreptitious glances at Carter and Teal’c. 

Noticing Tolkemec was deep in thought, Carter turned her attention to Techotl. 

"Tolkemec said you could show us where you grow your food. Feel like going for a walk and showing us around?"

He looked around the room. The feast was definitely in its final stages. Enough wine had been drunk to fill a bathtub, and the celebrants were beginning to feel its effects. Techotl felt it likely no one would notice their departure.

"Come, my friends, and I will take you," he replied quietly, leading the way.

As they left the room, he was proven quite wrong.

Akna continued to stare at Carter until they were lost to sight.


End file.
